the national historic preservation act and the need for congressional oversight hearings

Sample Letters

Congressional Talking Points

A critical issue facing access to public lands today is the conflict between recreational use and the management of historic and cultural properties on public land. Instead of litigation, the Access Fund requests Congressional clarification as to the extent that the government can exclude low-impact users of public lands to accommodate the views of one group.
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) includes provisions requiring agencies to consult with interested groups who attach cultural significance to historic properties that may be adversely affected by a federal undertaking such as the development of a public use plan. However, the NHPA also has provisions that the federal land management agencies occasionally exploit to establish exclusive preserves on public land that exclude otherwise legitimate users such as rockclimbers.
While rock climbers have been recently singled-out for exclusion (for example, at Cave Rock in Nevada and Twin Sisters in Idaho), all types of recreation and even extractive industry face a similar fate around the country, such as the timber industry in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming.
Federal land management agencies are inconsistently interpreting and implementing the provisions of the NHPA. In some extreme cases agencies have used the NHPA to provide historic and cultural interests exclusive use of public lands, to the detriment of otherwise legitimate groups and individuals, such as low-impacts recreational users, despite the reasonable alternatives that could provide multiple use management.
The NHPA is up for reauthorization in 2004, with the U.S. House of Representatives' National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands Subcommittee holding jurisdiction over such reauthorization. An effective way resolve this complicated issue, is to have Congress to clarify the proper interpretation NHPA.

Sample Congressional Letter

Date

The Honorable Nick J. Rahall II [your Congressional member here]
West Virginia-3rd, Democrat
2307 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4803

RE: Request for NHPA Oversight Hearings

Dear Congressman Rahall:

I write today as a constituent of yours with specific concerns regarding public lands management. I understand that the Committee on Resources-Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands-has jurisdiction over and oversight of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and that the NHPA may come up for reauthorization in 2004. Because you are a member of this Subcommittee and my elected representative I request that you advocate for holding NHPA oversight hearings this year and thus examine a critical issue facing access to public lands today: the growing conflict between low-impact recreational use and the exclusive management of historic and cultural properties on public land.

Rock climbers have already been negatively affected by inconsistent agency interpretations of the NHPA. Cave Rock in Nevada and Twin Sisters in Idaho, both on federal public land, have been closed to climbing year-round to preserve a subjective "feeling and association" of these public properties. In addition, the timber industry has faced a similar fate in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. All of these cases noted above have resulted in lawsuits, and I believe Congress should identify a policy solution for this issue and avoid future litigation that is both costly and divisive.

I believe that these important historic and cultural properties can be shared with low-impact recreational users such as rock climbers. Indeed, at Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming (where a climbing management plan urges climbers not to climb during the culturally-sensitive month of June), such multiple use management plans have proven successful. Nonetheless, land agencies ignore such reasonable solutions and are increasingly managing public lands not for multiple uses, but rather for the exclusive and subjective interests of one group.

Accordingly, I request that you hold NHPA oversight hearings this year, and that the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation, and Public Lands engage in a formal clarification of the proper interpretation of the NHPA. The proper interpretation of the NHPA, I believe, should be to preserve historical and cultural values on public lands while maintaining multiple-use access for low-impact recreation such as climbing.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
[your name and address]