ISSUE BRIEF: Stop Abuse of National Heritage Areas
The Issue:
Since 1984, Congress has established 24 National Heritage Areas (NHAs) throughout the United States, primarily in the Eastern half of the country. There is no enabling statute for NHAs: they can be designated wherever a local constituency wants such a designation for their region. The National Park Service (NPS) has a few guidelines for NHA designations: the area should complete a suitability study that includes public involvement, and there should be natural, historic or cultural heritage worthy of recognition.
NHAs are managed by a local management entity (government, commission, private nonprofit corporation) that is authorized to receive any federal funds allocated to the NHA. The NPS is supposed to work in an advisory capacity with the NHA management entity – not take an active role in the management of the NHA. Additionally, the management entity is not supposed to have any role in land management or any ability to purchase real property for the NHA.
Impacts:
One area that should be examined is the extent to which the NPS is actively involved at specific NHAs, to ensure that they are staying within the restrictions called for by the statute. Additionally, NHA designations may lead some local management entities to assume more authority than the statute contemplates – a potential area of great mischief and wrongdoing, especially when it comes to land use restrictions, since NHAs often engulf large areas (i.e. the Tennessee Civil War NHA encompasses the entire state of Tennessee!)
Solution:
- Congress needs to pass the Helfey/Craig legislation to establish common sense criteria for the designation of NHA.