“A push from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee to change a landmark law designed to protect Native American cultural treasures and other historic sites has emerged as a major sticking point in permitting reform negotiations.
Lee, a Utah Republican, is looking to overhaul the National Historic Preservation Act, created during the post-World War II development boom, arguing it has become a bottleneck to energy project development on federal lands, particularly out West.
But Lee’s effort is dividing Democrats, some of whom are wary of taking on a law that is important to tribes and the preservation community. The dispute could threaten a goal of making progress on a permitting deal before the August recess.
‘We ought to protect the places that show where we came from and who we are. But over the years, a narrow procedural safeguard has evolved into a sprawling, unpredictable process that now delays some of the very projects our country needs to build and maintain,’ Lee said during a hearing last year.”
