2023 Lobby Days Recap
National Preservation Advocacy Week, organized by Preservation Action and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, was back in-person in Washington, DC this year — for the first time since March 2020.
Left: The Capitol building lit up at night; Right: Congressman Paul Tonko, Kathryn Leonard from AZ SHPO, Daniel McEneny and Daniel Mackay from NYSHPO, and League VP Katie Eggers Comeau.
I was an intern for Preservation Action in graduate school, and participated in virtual Lobby Day last year, but this was the first time I’ve attended the federal Preservation Advocacy Week in person. Our delegation of four was organized by the NY State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), whose staff members ably compiled informational materials for legislators, arranged 19 meetings on the Hill spread over two days, and are now coordinating our follow-up activities.
Our meetings were bipartisan: 8 Republicans and 11 Democrats, including 6 Congresspeople who were just a few months into their first term. We met one Congressman in person, Paul Tonko, who represents the Capital Region, as well as several staffers who were already very familiar with the Preservation League, SHPO, and federal preservation priorities. We also met with staffers who are just getting familiar with historic preservation as part of their new portfolios, which was a great opportunity to let them know how their bosses can support preservation at the federal level.
Just days before we convened in DC, the Historic Tax Credit Growth and Opportunity Act (HTC-GO / S.639), a bill designed to update and improve the federal Historic Tax Credit program, was reintroduced in the Senate; it will soon be introduced in the House as well. In past sessions, this bill has garnered bipartisan support from the New York delegation, with eight Congresspeople and one Senator from NYS signing on as co-sponsors in the last Congress. We hope to see even stronger support from the New York delegation this year. We asked for HTC-GO co-sponsorship in all our meetings and will follow up with all offices once the bill is introduced on the House side. In the meantime, we encourage preservation advocates to contact Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand to request their co-sponsorship of S.639.
We also asked New York lawmakers to support an increased appropriation for the Historic Preservation Fund, which provides significant funding to State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, as well as a number of grant programs such as Save America’s Treasures, Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grants, Underrepresented Community Grants, and more. The past few years have seen long-overdue gains in HPF funding, mostly due to the expanding number and size of grant programs under its umbrella. This year’s ask of $225 million largely reflects the fact that SHPOs and THPOs are seeing an increased workload, particularly in their project review responsibilities, and that the grant programs under HPF are seeing strong demand as well. We’ll have more information in the next few weeks about how you can help encourage your Senators and Congresspeople to support an increased HPF appropriation and HTC-GO!