The State, Tribal, Local, Plans & Grants Division of the National Park Service is pleased to announce the fifth edition of our Federal Historic Preservation Laws publication, an anthology of Federal laws and portions of laws related to the preservation of the United States’ cultural heritage.
Arranged chronologically, this publication demonstrates how the body of law has changed over the last one hundred years. Beginning in 1906 with the Antiquities Act, highlighted in 1966 with the National Historic Preservation Act, and most recently restructured with the creation of Title 54 of the United States Code in 2014, this book details the gradual evolution of American historic preservation law.
From its creation in 1916, the National Park Service assumed responsibility for the many historical and cultural sites of the National Park System, but the size and scope of preservation law has expanded over the years to include protection and recognition of historic resources across all levels of government and on public and private land alike. The practice of historic preservation extends far beyond the limits of this book as well, including State and Tribal law and local historic designation processes, but this publication focuses exclusively on statues enacted on a Federal level.
This update incorporates amendments and other changes to existing laws as well as several newly enacted programs, but the majority of changes pertain to those laws now contained in Title 54 of the United States Code. Congress enacted Title 54 in 2014 in order to simplify citations and provide room for expansion in the body of law surrounding the National Park Service and the programs that it administers, including historic preservation programs.
To do this, Congress gathered all the relevant laws which were spread throughout the Code (mostly in Title 16), repealed them, and reenacted them in their new Title 54 home. During this process, Congress moved sections together that they thought were related, and occasionally split sections into multiple parts where they did not belong together. Because of this, each law in this book follows the organization and structure of the original Act while using the updated language from Title 54.
Past versions of Federal Historic Preservation Laws have helped everyone from government agencies and lawyers, to university professors and everyday citizens, to reference and understand the Federal framework of historic preservation law. This newest update aims to build on that function by presenting recent changes in the law as an intuitive format so that communities and individuals may continue to draw upon it as a tool to preserve what makes their communities special.
The State, Tribal, Local, Plans & Grants Division is a part of Cultural Resources, Partnerships and Science, within the National Park Service. John Renaud and Jessica Goodman prepared and edited the text. Matthew Payne designed the publication.
The web version of the book is available at go.nps.gov/preservationlaws.
We expect physical copies of the publication to be available through the Government Publishing Office this fall.