 Alright, we're going to go ahead and get started. We've got a wonderful program for you today, so we want to make sure we use the most of our time. Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Lauren Cohen. I am the Associate Director of Government Relations for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And I'm pleased to welcome everyone to today's session here, the Historic Preservation Advocacy in the 118th Congress. We've got some excellent speakers today to update us on the current status of our shared priorities on Capitol Hill. I'm pleased to be joined by my colleague Pam Bowman, Senior Director of Public Lands Policy with the National Trust, Michael Phillips, Director of Policy with the National Trust Community Investment Corporation. And finally, we'll hear from Russ Carnahan, former member of Congress and current policy advisor for preservation action. The webinar today is part of the National Trust's programming for the upcoming past forward conference happening in person in Washington DC from November 8th to the 10th. On November 7th, we'll be heading to Capitol Hill with more than 100 advocates to meet with congressional offices about these historic preservation legislative priorities to share stories about local preservation efforts and most importantly to build relationships with those congressional offices. Now, as we go through our webinar today, you're going to see lots of notes from our colleague Priya in the webinar chat. So feel free to look through those notes as she's, as she's posting them notes and links. Also, if you do have questions as we are going through this session, please feel free to use that Q&A feature. It's on the bottom of the ribbon in your Zoom webinar browser. Just tap that Q&A button and feel free to ask those questions there. We'll try to answer them either as the webinar is going on, we can just type in answers. Or if we have time at the end of the webinar, we'll answer those questions verbally live. So thank you again for all of you being here with us today. But now we can change the slide here. Now to set the stage for both advocates who will be joining us on Capitol Hill two weeks from today and for those of you who are advocating from home, let's just talk about what's going on in Congress generally right now. So we've got a stalled appropriations process. All 12 appropriations bills have been approved by committees in the Senate, but none of them have passed on the Senate floor. And the House has actually passed just four of its appropriations bills to date. The fiscal year 2023 ended on September 30th. So the federal government is currently operating under a short term continuing resolution or CR, which expires on November 17. When they passed that CR they set it for 45 days. So that 45 days is dwindling quickly. So in some years, no CR is required if both chambers finish their work by September 30. Unfortunately, this is exceedingly rare. In fact, it's only happened four times since 1977. So if no funding bill is passed before the end of the of the fiscal year, then they either need to bring in a CR continuing resolution, or if a CR isn't passed, then the government shuts down. So that's kind of what we're looking at now. Typically, the time for a continuing resolution would be extra time for Congress to hammer out all of the final details for the next fiscal year spending package. So we are looking at fiscal year 2024 spending package. Typically, we'd be looking for those details to be hammered out right now, but unfortunately, our next section shows us that the House of Representatives is currently in turmoil. I think everybody would agree that that's an appropriate word to use here because today marks 21 days that there has not been a speaker of the House. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted 21 days ago and there has been stalled efforts to get a new speaker of the House from among the Republican conference. So we're watching that situation very, very closely because no business can be conducted in the House until a new speaker is in place. There is currently a temporary speaker, the speaker pro temp that is Patrick McHenry, Mr. McHenry from North Carolina, but really his powers only go so far as to get a new speaker in, get a new speaker installed. So no other business can be taking place until that speaker of the House is installed. So we're looking at fiscal year 2024 funding. We're looking at potential Ukraine aid, Israel Palestine aid, US Mexico border funding, the aviation FAA reauthorization, farm bill, and so many more things are hanging in the balance that need to happen and can't happen. And while one of the congressional chambers is essentially stuck. So that's kind of where we are. Big picture, congressionally will zoom down into the specific preservation priorities and where they are congressionally but big picture that's kind of where we are. We have to wait for that to be resolved before we can get get other priorities out the door. You can change the slide, please. So right now, federal advocacy tactics that we can use and remember are that members of Congress want to hear from their constituents about the successes and the challenges that their communities are facing at this moment. Even though business can't be conducted on the House side until there's a speaker of the House, your members of Congress still need to hear from you. Those members in the House are still working. They're still working on behalf of their constituents. And so they need to hear from you. So those of you who are joining us in two weeks on Capitol Hill, those members of Congress, their staff. They still really need to hear from you and want to hear from you so that they can steer the direction that they're going to go, ways that they're going to vote, things that they're going to consider. Also, please do remember that historic preservation priorities are bipartisan. They really are. And as my colleagues and I will outline, we've got a lot of bipartisan support for the things that we are pushing for. So please do remember that while things are really divided and Congress seems extremely partisan, we are representing an issue that is very bipartisan. There are historic preservation successes all over the country in red and blue districts and states. So please do remember that. And also, when you're talking about historic preservation, it's wonderful to talk about the inherent necessity and the worth of saving places, kind of the preservation for preservation's sake argument. That's a great argument to make. But also please do remember that there are a lot of ways to talk about why historic preservation is really, really important. That may catch the ear of these specific decision makers like the fact that historic preservation creates jobs. It generates revenue through heritage tourism and other ways. It invests in local economies through small businesses and there are so many more ways that historic preservation enriches communities. So, and you know, all those, all those ways as well as I do. So please do keep those in mind as you're crafting your advocacy message. And also, you know, we're in October now we're looking at the last two months of the year. There are going to be several recesses where the US Congress will be not here in Washington. They'll be back in their home districts in states. So please do consider in district visits with your members of Congress. Have them come to a site that you have been working on or to see a new installation or something that where they can really tangibly see the work of historic preservation in their home districts. So those are really good things to consider as we're looking at the last two months of the year with several holiday recesses coming up and ways that they can spend their time when they're home in their home districts. So with that, let's hear more about the specific legislative priorities that we're talking about. Mike Phillips is the director of public policy with the National Trust Community Investment Corporation and is going to give us a brief background on the historic tax credit and where it stands now. Mike. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks everybody for joining and thank you to those who are going to be joining us on Capitol Hill. It is a actually a good time to be advocating. There's a lot going on at the leadership level at the staff level there's staff that are that can actually focus on issues and can dive into the details to see if proposals are a good idea for their bosses. So this is actually a very good time to connect with congressional staff many times members are in town which is not always the case and can have conversations with staff so thank you for all those who are going to be participating on November 7th on Capitol Hill, it's much needed. And I think we're going to see some good results. Most of you all know the federal historic tax credit is a critical component to historic preservation. And the idea behind the historic tax credit and state historic tax credits is to fill the financing gap between what banks tend to lend with historic projects and a vacant and underutilized property. Banks tend to lend less these credits fill in the gap, whether that is as a tax benefit to the building owner, or whether that is those credits are syndicated to bring equity to the project. 20% credit on the qualified rehabilitation expenses, and as of 2017 that 20% credit is given over five years so 4% of that total QRE expense per year for five years. It represents by far the largest investment in historic preservation, really all over the map small towns, urban areas. And here's just a snapshot on just what the HTC is responsible for in 4546 years, 48,000 historic buildings generated 37.6 billion in credits and federal tax revenue of 42.9 billion. Now these are estimates by the record study sanctioned by the National Park Service inflation adjusted numbers that's 199 billion and financed investment, and it's created over 3 million jobs over 45 years. Next slide. So, but we do have challenges so this, you know we're talking of a credit that was designed in the late 70s it was made permanent in the code in 1986, and really has not been positively modernized since 1986. This really do for a refresh. Other credits are getting modernized. And so in the market is facing real challenges. There are financing challenges related to skyrocketing cost of materials. Rising interest rates you wouldn't believe the change orders that are coming in on these historic tax credit projects, where they have the estimates set and then there's a cost change that has to be approved. And the financing gaps within these projects are increasing everything from insurance to labor to materials to interest rates, less competition for loans and investors. So this this credit needs to be modernized it's past due to be modernized. We have new federal credits out there that are these shiny new areas to invest in and the historic tax credit needs to be refreshed to compete. So it's really important that we, we see improvements to the historic tax credit because it is a fundamental way that we do historic preservation across the country and it, it, it is alive and well and both small towns and urban areas. One troubling stat is that that the part two applications have been down for the past two years. You know, some of us thought this might be a hangover from COVID. And we're kind of looking at it now and it's concerning. So this just gives us more boldness to say that the historic tax credit needs to be modernized. All right, so we have a bill. Many of you will probably are probably familiar with this bill the historic tax credit growth and opportunity act there's been similar versions of this bill and previous Congresses. Really this bill is to modernize the credit to make the credit easier to use to bring more value to the credit. I mentioned before the challenges. Some of those challenges are federal policies. So irs guidance that came out in 2015 and then our 2014 and then 2016 was not advantageous to the deals and dean the pricing of the credits. And then the five year spread of the credits we were able, you know, much to everyone's help on this on this webinar, we were able to save the historic tax credit in 2017 but we got a, we got a haircut, we are spread over five years now which has diminished the pricing of that and has, you know, made some deals that were that were moving forward pretty tax reform, almost impossible to do now just because you can't bring in certain kinds of investors with a five year spread. But we have a bill that is, is hoping to address a lot of these issues. Number one kind of stabilize the credit. The House bill has a has a provision that would boost the credit from 20 to 30% for the next few years and then it would, it would, it would ramp down. So through 2020 25 we would have a 30% credit and then we'd ramp down to, you know, 26, it would go down all the way back down to 20 over the next seven years permanent provisions. There would be provisions that would be permanent in the code. And this is both in the house and the Senate bill 30% credit for all smaller projects 2.5 million in qres and below. And it would also a provision would also lower the substantial rehabilitation threshold right now, you have to do have a rehab of 100% of a building's basis we don't think that that is a substantial rehab we think that's a full rehab. We are proposing that the substantial rehab tests be 50% of the building's basis and that will allow make it to where buildings are going to be totally falling apart to use the historic tax credit and also in these post COVID times and the new hybrid work economy. It would allow for some of this office space to be converted into housing or different uses and they could meet the substantial rehab tests to do that. Another provision is to eliminate the basis adjustment right now you have to have to subtract the amount of credits from a building's basis. This is not advantageous to the building owner. And it's also not advantageous if you want to bring in affordable housing in there affordable housing is calculated by a building's basis. So it's transactions were complicated. So we'd like to eliminate that that will bring tax benefits to all users of the historic tax credit and also provide more opportunities for affordable housing. And last but not least, making the easy easier to use by nonprofits. You know, right now, nonprofits have to jump through a lot of hoops to use the historic tax credit and in many cases they can't use the credit at all. Especially if they fully own the building before they decide to do the rehab. Right now, if a nonprofit wants to use the HTC it really has to be a large project in order to use it if they can. And we want to change that we think some of the most impactful projects and lots of times. The revitalization is pioneered through nonprofits and their projects in communities and we want to make that easier to be done. Next slide. So here's where we are right now in the house, we have 42 co sponsors. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to their member of Congress. It's really helpful we're rolling right along this year we had over 100 co sponsors in the house last Congress and we are on our way hopefully to beat that number in this Congress so within the first year of the Congress Congress is there two years. And we're almost through the first Congress we have 42 co sponsors hopefully we can get that 50 co sponsor mark by the end of December. The individuals in red are ways and means members so these are the tax writers we've got to got a lot. We have a lot of good traction. So thank you if you've reached out to your members and also reached out to members of the tax writing committee a big thank you for that these are the folks that were that have real oversight. Next slide. We do need to double down in the Senate more takes a little bit more effort to get a senator on board the legislation. Lots of times it takes folks coming in from multiple angles multiple cities. So here's where we are with this with the Senate. There are quite a few folks who co sponsored last year that are not on the bill and the Senate side that we'd love to get those folks on but we have some targets here that will share with you in a second. But we really need some help on Republicans in in the Senate so if you have a Republican senator please lean in and and ask them to co sponsor the bill and contacts other folks that were within your state. And to ask that legislator to join the bill make a compelling argument. Let them know about projects let them know how challenging it is to use this to work tax credit nowadays and how it needs to be modernized. Next slide. So these are our targets right now if you have a member of Congress and if this if any of these are your member of Congress or in your state or part of your team that's going to Capitol Hill. Please please make sure that you're talking about the historic tax credit these are tax writers and please if possible meet with tax staff if you already have planned your meeting loop in the tax staffer. We are happy to help you find to that tax staffer is. We're happy to send you whoever that is and even their email address to help you arrange that meeting. But these are key people if we can get these people on the bill this bill will will have a strong opportunity to get put in final tax legislation. So again in the Senate here are the tax writers on the finance committee and all this will be all this is recorded so you will be able to go back and see these slides. If you would like, but if you see a member from your state please like similar to the other slide, make sure that the historic tax credit is part of your ask and please loop in the tax staffer into your conversation. These are folks that we need to get on the bill, especially key Republicans it would be great to get more Republicans on the Senate historic tax credit growth and opportunity act. Next slide. So opportunities so as Lorne mentioned, you know there is some. There is a lot going on. There is a, there is a threat of a government shutdown right now, starting November 17. So, Congress is basically trying to keep the lights on with the government at the moment. And they are trying to work through the spending bills for FY 24. And it's a big fight. So, there is an opportunity for a tax bill, but it's becoming more challenging. I would say every day that we don't have a speaker and every day we are not addressing and negotiating on the spending bills. But what's interesting for this Congress that was not in play last Congress is this you have to chairman of tax writing committees of both the House and the Senate that are talking to each other that are going out to dinner and seeing where they can find common ground and having a desire to do something on tax which we did in previous Congresses. So the, the opportunity is there. Both of them, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and representative Jason Smith of Missouri. Excuse me. They both believe they can get a tax bill done. And they think they can find agreement. They think they can find the offsets. So we have in the underbelly of all this confusion we have people that are actually legislating and have ideas for legislation from across the capital. The bigger politics is the problem. So, what would come together with a year in tax bill. So there are a lot of expired tax provisions that have already expired. There's also housing provisions. There are business tax provisions that have expired and there's a lot of tax provisions that are set to expire in 2025. Like doubling of the personal deduction will be expired in 2025 so there's some big things out there that if this is pushed forward that's that's going to come to a head but there is actually enough to put a tax bill together right now. The R and D one year full of expensing deductions a big deal to businesses and and expense this year expired in 2022. So this will be the first tax year where they will not have that. So my, I believe that, you know, next year folks are going to be screaming that this thing needs to get reauthorized. And also the child tax credit so that's expired as well. Senator Whiting is looking to reformulate that they think they have an agreement that that other Democrats can can get on board with and it will bring down the cost to where you could find some of these other provisions that Republicans want. So there's opportunity to do a tax bill but the bigger politics are in play. And it's making it difficult the spending bills got to get out of the way first they've got to find some sort of agreement before they can see if they can approach tax but it's a very positive indication that the chairman of both the committees are talking they're getting along they think they can get a deal. And so it's really important for us to build the support for the historic tax credit to bring on as many co sponsors as possible and then see if we can get these provisions into a tax bill. Next slide. So our request our request is please cosponsor the historic tax credit growth and opportunity act and look for opportunities to include HTC provisions, and you're in legislation, as they possibly consider tax legislation. As I mentioned before now is a great time to dig into the details with staff, share projects, let them learn about the historic tax credit in their community, learn that ways that we are suggesting to modernize it. And please direct the members to sign on the bill by in the house going to Representative Blumenauer of Oregon or Representative LaHood, who is the main sponsor of the bill from Illinois and in the Senate, Senator Cardin is the sponsor so Democrats would want to go to Senator Cardin's office to get on the bill, and then Senator Cassidy for the Republicans in the Senate if they want to get on the bill. And yeah, Illinois I like that I'm from Illinois I was born in Illinois. I love Illinois to land Lincoln. But that's all I got. I'll hand it back over to Lauren. Thanks so much. Thank you so much Mike, I always learn a lot more about HTC when I hear you talk about it and I'm sure our advocates do too so thank you. Now I'll jump into the historic preservation fund both its annual appropriation and its authorization status. So I'll start with funding. You may have heard the saying that Congress holds the purse strings of the government and the appropriations process is primarily how that happens. Both the US House and US Senate have 12 appropriation subcommittees funding everything from defense to rural development to Homeland Security, the National Endowment for Humanities and National Park Service, and the historic preservation fund, everything in there. And each subcommittee writes the legislation that allocates federal funds to numerous government agencies departments and organizations on an annual basis. So the subcommittees who hold jurisdiction over the Department of the Interior, and thus the National Park Service and the historic preservation fund is the subcommittee on interior environment and related agencies. There's one of each of these in the House and the Senate. Here's the chart of the recent funding history for the HPF. You can see all the elements that make up the HPF all of the, the shippo line the tip oh line all of those competitive grant programs. And so you can see, you know, since FY 2021 what has been enacted, and then recently, you know we've got here that fiscal year 2024 administration request. So that's what President Biden essentially made a request of Congress hey this is what we as the administration would like to see in terms of funding. And there that last bar is the request made by the National Trust for historic preservation. And the National Trust in concert with other preservation national partners made a formal request of $225 million for the HPF for fiscal year 2024. In July we saw the Senate come out with and pass $195.166 million for the HPF. So that that has that has passed the, the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. And the House Interior subcommittee came out with $175.4 million for the HPF so a good bit less than what came out of the Senate number. So now these differences are going to have to be reconciled and mutually agreed upon by a conference between the House and Senate appropriators. And then have to be finalized. So, as I mentioned earlier and Mike reiterated to fiscal year 2023 ended on September 30. So to avoid a government shutdown, a continuing resolution was reached for 45 days. Theoretically that 45 days would be to hammer out all of the final work on fiscal year 2024 appropriations, like reconciling the different numbers from each chamber. And getting getting an agreement between the Senate number of $195 million for the HPF or the House number of $175 million for the HPF. Theoretically, this is the time that those conversations would be happening. As we talked about, you know, there's a lot of other things happening so I don't know how much those conversations are happening to reconcile those differences. So that's kind of where we are with historic preservation fund funding. This has to happen every single year we have to get appropriators get their eyes on this every single year talk about the reasons why we're looking to increase what's going into the HPF and we've seen increases come to the HPF in just the past five years alone. If you look there at what was enacted in fiscal year 2021 at 144 just over $144 million. You know, fast forward two years what was enacted for fiscal year 2023. We're for the first time over $200 million. So that's a huge amount of growth. That's because we have incredible champions on Capitol Hill, both Republicans and Democrats, and we have amazing advocates going to the Hill virtually writing in. I think Priya just put a link in where you can take action about the historic preservation fund. We've got incredible advocates talking about why this is important year in and year out. So that's kind of where we are with historic preservation fund funding. We can go to the next slide. Now I'd like to switch gears and talk about HPF authorization. So, here's what we're talking about with authorization. There's a big difference in funding and authorization. This is the other side of the coin. Authorization laws have two basic purposes. They establish, continue or modify federal programs. And they are a prerequisite under House and Senate rules for Congress to appropriate budget authority for these programs. So, in the case of the HPF, it must be reauthorized so that deposits can be made into its account at the Department of Treasury. Without authorization, it can't collect those deposits. So the current authorization for the HPF expired on September 30th, the same day as the last day of the fiscal year, but it expired that day. And there was no action from Congress. So, this is, you know, every five to seven years, sometimes three years, sometimes a little longer. Every, every so often, since the HPF's inception in 1977, the HPF has had to be reauthorized. So this kind of is a typical cycle of reauthorization. The committees that have jurisdiction over this process are the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And you can check to see if you have members of Congress who serve on those committees. That's a lot of Western states serve on these committees, but not as a hard and fast rule. So definitely check to see if you have folks that represent you that serve on those committees because they are the ones who decide the reauthorization of programs like the historic preservation fund. So, now, I don't want to cause any alarm bells here that the authorization has now expired because that doesn't mean that the HPF is now defunct and Shippo and Tipo office offices are closed and, you know, things like that have, you know, happened automatically on October 1st. That's not the case. Actually, appropriators can choose to appropriate annual funding, even if the authorization has elapsed. So, unless the underlying law is expressly forbids it, Congress can extend a program simply by providing new appropriations to it. The appropriations made available for a program after after its authorization has expired are called unauthorized appropriations. So that happens. That happens with some regularity that you see programs that have not been reauthorized, they continue to get appropriations. You know, this is not ideal because the authorization of a program is the marker of congressional support for the work and the function of that program or agency. So, the HPF has enjoyed bipartisan congressional support since its inception. And, you know, we continue to see that time and time again. We can change slides here. One of the one of those ways for that bipartisan support is with the Historic Preservation Fund Reauthorization Act, HR 3350. So that has been introduced in the house. It would reauthorize the HPF for 10 years, so a longer authorization than it had before, and increase its authorization level from 150 million to 250 million. And Carl in the Q&A section, I saw your question and wanted to mention here, Carl was specifically asking about what about a permanent authorization for the HPF, which would be amazing. And there was an effort in the last Congress in the 117th Congress to see the HPF have a permanent authorization like the LWCF. And that effort was led by Representative Teresa Legger Fernandez of New Mexico. She is a current co-sponsor of this legislation that you see on the screen now. But last Congress, she led an effort to see a permanent authorization for the HPF. I will note though, unfortunately the interest on the Hill to see any program permanently authorized is extremely low. But most members of Congress want to have the opportunity to review programs every so often. So, you know, now we're pushing for this 10-year reauthorization, which again is longer than the authorization it just had. And it's longer than most authorizations for many programs. So we're pushing for that now. Of course, we would love to see the HPF permanently authorized. That is a goal that we're going to need to continue to work toward together. But thank you for that question, Carl. So in acting this legislation would significantly enhance the protection of our nation's historic resources and ensure that they remain vibrant for communities throughout the country well into the future for the next 10 years if we see that 10-year reauthorization. So we currently have these co-sponsors for the legislation and you'll note that it's extremely bipartisan. There are as many Republicans as there are Democrats on this bill so far. And those members with an asterisk are original sponsors of the legislation. So if you're represented by one of these members be sure to thank them for showing their support and leadership for the HPF. And, you know, if you don't see your member of Congress, these, again, this has just been introduced in the House so far. So we're not seeing senators on this for a reason because there's not a tandem bill in the Senate quite yet. But if you don't see your member of Congress represented here, that's an excellent opportunity for you to bring this up to them with some expediency. You know, you can say, hey, this has expired on September 30th. We need to see something happen soon. So we can change slides here. So to sum up here for the historic preservation fund, our current requests are for the fiscal year 2024 appropriations for congressional negotiators to use the higher Senate number of $195 million, just over $195 million for that HPF funding for that fiscal year. And for the authorization side, encourage your members in the House to co-sponsor the Historic Preservation Fund Reauthorization Act. You can ask for it by name and you can, you know, rely on the fact that it is bipartisan. So you can go in confidently to members of in the Republican or Democrat conferences and say that their colleagues do support this. So now we're going to hear from my colleague Pam Bowman. She's the senior director of public lands policy. So I will turn it over to Pam now. Hey, Lauren. I'm going to talk briefly about one of the projects of the National Trust that we've worked on for many years, which is the preservation of Route 66. We've worked with our partners across all eight states and many of these communities to make sure that we preserve as much of that history as possible. And as you can see here, we have some information about just how widespread and impactful Route 66 is to our nation. We've worked with over 5.5 million residents along those 2400 miles and over 250 sites on the National Register of Historic Places. This really is one of the most recognizable roadways, not only in this nation, but across the world with a number of unique historic properties and themes that represent the history of Route 66. It's something the National Trust has worked on for quite a while, including pursuing a National Historic Trail designation for the route. As many of you may know, there are 20 National Historic Trails that are administered by the National Park Service and as part of that process to pursue a National Historic Trail designation. Often there's something that's called a special resource study that the National Park Service puts together and back in 1995, that special resource study determined that Route 66 met the eligibility requirements. So after a few years working with our partners and also champions on Capitol Hill, we've made this really a cornerstone of our federal advocacy. And so if we switch to the next slide, I'd like to share a little bit about the legislation introduced earlier this year, Route 66 National Historic Trail designation act. And you'll see here that representatives Darren LaHood, a Republican from Illinois and Grace Napolitano from California are the bill leads for this House legislation, which just as its name indicates would designate Route 66 as a National Historic Trail. This bill has actually been introduced in previous Congresses, but has not passed due to either running out of time or other political circumstances. But this designation really would play a significant role in helping to preserve an iconic part of our nation's history. One of the most recognizable roadways in the country and ahead of Route 66 is Centennial Celebration in 2026. Within that over 2000 mile stretch, there are 39 congressional districts that are bisected by Route 66. We're hoping to have not only all of those members of Congress signing up to be a co-sponsor of this legislation, but really to go beyond that with our advocacy. What we've seen in Congress is this is an enormously popular piece of legislation, an enormously popular road where people can associate this with many themes in our history, music, television. It's really something that people in Congress have found to be a bipartisan issue and something that we believe can get done in this Congress. So we'd really love you to reach out to your member of Congress to ask them to co-sponsor and support this legislation in the House. We have some of that information up on our website where you can send an automatic letter to your House member asking them to express that support. And a number of other issues related to Route 66 are connected through our website, including some of the work on the other initiatives we're doing to improve preservation all along the route beyond federal advocacy. So be on the lookout for those of you joining us at Pass Forward to some free resources that we'll have for your Hill meetings. And we'll make sure that as much of that information and all the updates on this legislative work will be posted at the website URL that you see on the screen. I will turn that back over to Lauren. Great. Thank you so much, Pam. That's really, really exciting work and I encourage you all to check out the links that Priya has put in the chat so you can get involved and learn more about the preservation of Route 66. Thank you, Priya, for being so diligent with all of those links. We have so many resources for you. Now I'd like to welcome Russ Carnahan, a former member of Congress and a current policy advisor for the preservation action. We have enjoyed some wonderful collaboration with preservation action on so many legislative priorities this Congress. So Russ, if you'd like to share with folks about what preservation action is doing and the upcoming auction, I will turn it over to you. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Thank you. I'm going to, I am in the airport lounge in Charlotte, North Carolina, so it's not the ideal place to do this, but I'm glad our technology is working. Thank you all for doing this and incorporating this advocacy component into the trust conference. It's a unique opportunity and pleased that we've been able to collaborate with you all on that. As you said, I'm president of preservation action and preservation action is as most of you know is the, you know, we're coming up on our 50 year anniversary. Next year is really the grassroots network of individuals and organizations in the country really dedicated to national advocacy for historic preservation. We are again so pleased there's this unique opportunity at this critical time with the budget with the congressional processes to be sure we're there taking advantage of this advocacy opportunity while folks are in DC. The other unique thing that we have done in most recent years is we've also done the preservation action foundations auction. It's been our largest fundraiser of the year. And we also believe it's the best and most fun party in preservation. So that will be back in person as well. We've done it virtually the last three years, just like the you all have, but we're so thrilled to be back in person this year to be back in Washington and to be able to do our preservation action foundation auction. So please join that event live while we're there in Washington. But the other component of the auction is we have a silent auction that actually has just opened up ahead of time so you can believe Rob will put the link here in the website. You can go to that link now and get a preview of the silent auction items that are open. As we speak so that's really an overview and just really on advocacy in general I want to point out just how being on the other side of the fence as an elected member in Congress, how much it means to have constituents and experts reaching out to you getting you good information. Arming you with that and really putting out the local impact that is such a powerful thing to have both constituents and examples of local impact. It's hard to really beat that in terms of how the persuasive impact that has we've heard that story over and over and over again from elected representatives when they've seen that heard it from local constituents and experts and seeing the impact of projects on the ground in their districts and in their state. It is it is really persuasive and really make an impact so just I'm pleased to see this happening as part of the trust conference and look forward to seeing you all here in just a few weeks. So and again, I guess I'll add one more personal note. Pam I love your report about Route 66 I grew up and live on Route 66 and just really pleased to see that unique effort being put behind that and really what it means to that unique highway and unique history in our country. Thanks for us. Well, thank you so much, Congressman and it is so valuable and insightful to have your background and and your unique perspective on what it takes to get something, you know, over that proverbial line in Congress and but also to hear that encouragement that advocacy really does matter and it works and so it's it's been wonderful to collaborate closely with preservation action and excited to to see what we can accomplish together. If you could advance the slide please. So I just wanted to to outline a few of these upcoming in person opportunities that we have so this webinar really has been in preparation for the advocacy day that we are planning on it Tuesday, November 7 that is two weeks from today. So if you will be in Washington for the past forward conference, and you'd like to be a part of this advocacy day, definitely reach out to my colleague Jackson he's the associate manager of policy communications. His email address is right there. If you'd like to reach out to him and get more information about how you can be involved in this advocacy day. This is for in person meetings. So if you're looking to get involved with any kind of virtual meetings or or things like that we can talk about that separately but this specifically would be if you are going to be in Washington and want to participate on Capitol Hill on November 7. So we've got that coming up. And then of course the past forward conference starts November 8 that evening we've got the preservation action foundations annual auction that you just heard Congressman Carnahan talk about. And I think there is a link in the chat for you to check that out as well so if you'll be in Washington, definitely look into that. And also, I just wanted to highlight one session there are so many incredible sessions at the past forward conference but if you will be attending the conference. I'm just going to highlight one. If you'll if you'll allow it you can join me before an advocacy workshop on Thursday, November 9. I'm honored to be joined by colleagues from Main Street America the American Institute of Architects and South Carolina African American Heritage Foundation for an interactive workshop designed to help you craft your advocacy message so really how you can hone in on what's important to you what your preservation priorities are. This is not just for federal advocacy but can be applied to advocacy up and down the spectrum of elected officials local state federal and also just any kind of decision maker that you may be talking about and need to persuade that investments need to happen in historic preservation so if you are available and interested that session will be happening Thursday, November 9 in the afternoon. We do have just a couple of minutes but I think most of the questions have been answered. We do. We do have a question specifically about the advocacy day. So, we can get you more information about the logistics for that day. Typically, there will be a state captain reaching out to to folks who are in their delegation. So those captains will be reaching out to you as they are getting those meetings all nailed down for for advocacy on November 7. So, so those captains will be reaching out to you. If you don't hear from anyone definitely reach out to us. Again, Jackson very kindly has his contact information there on the screen. So if you've signed up for advocacy and you're wondering what's going on. Just reach out to us but also know that your captains will probably be reaching out very very shortly with more logistics about what's going on that day. I would invite my fellow panelists if you have anything else to add. Anything else that you'd like to add from your remarks earlier any questions that have come to you directly or any other thoughts that you've come to have come to mind. I think just the last parting thought and I mentioned this during our fall webinars and previous years. For those of you who have attended these webinars and gone on to use our advocacy alerts and to do these hill visits for both past forward and for other instances. You've been a big part of the success and getting a number of bills to the president's desk the last few years and so, first of all, a thank you but also just to emphasize that what you're doing is working. You've been able to preserve and protect some amazing places. In the last few years, specific bills that our speakers in these webinars have been able to share information about so keep doing what you're doing. And thank you for all of your efforts on these preservation issues. I just echo that that the historic tax credit has been is more challenge than it's ever been, but the support has been deeper and broader than it's ever been so thank you for all of your efforts and let's keep, keep at it. You know, it's great that the trust conferences in DC. There's another opportunity to go to Capitol Hill, and then there are other opportunities throughout the year to join advocates on Capitol Hill, but also from home and site visits and that sort of thing. And so let's just keep the momentum going keep the drumbeat going and we're producing good results we just have to bring them across the finish line. That's exactly right. This advocacy really is all about creating relationships building relationships with decision makers and with their staffs. If you have the opportunity to meet with congressional staff in a couple weeks, know that those are the folks that are, you know, keeping their head down and really, really getting work done. So, and those congressional staff, you know, they're the ones that are going to take your emails to so do know that the work that you're doing building those relationships with decision makers and their staff is incredibly important. This is how we see change happen. So thank you all for your interest in advocacy. And for, for those of you who are first timers and for those of you who have been doing it for many years, thank you for what you do. I also want to offer my sincere thanks to all of our speakers today, Mike, Russ, Pam, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your insights. And thanks to all of you for attending this session. The session was recorded and you'll receive an email with a link to the recording within 24 hours. So definitely check that out if you want to share with other folks or want to go back and listen to a certain section again. I'll probably be listening to that tax credit session section again, just so I have all my talking points ready to go. But thank you all again, and we will look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks if you're joining us here in Washington.