Sixty years ago this fall, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, a landmark statute grounded in a simple democratic principle: when government decisions threaten to alter or destroy the historic places that Americans care about, the public deserves a voice in what happens to them. Now, as Congress considers sweeping changes to the federal permitting process, that principle is facing its greatest test yet.

In the aftermath of World War II, federal policies fueled an unprecedented building boom that reshaped the nation, with new suburban housing developments and black ribbons of highway asphalt sprawling out. Within the nation’s cities, urban renewal programs aimed to clear away ‘blighted’ older neighborhoods to make room for something newer, cleaner, and as many federal policymakers believed, something better. By the 1960s, many began to recognize that this progress was coming at a severe cost. Neighborhood residents, community leaders, and preservationists pointed to the loss of architectural landmarks and tight-knit neighborhoods as whole blocks of communities across the country were leveled with federal support.

Lost beneath the bulldozers and new concrete were communities like East Tremont in New York City where thousands of families were evicted for the Cross Bronx Expressway; spectacular natural landscapes like Glen Canyon in the Southwest, which disappeared under water with the damming of Lake Powell; and architectural treasures like Chicago’s Garrick Building, which came down to make space for a parking garage. The physical record of the American experience was being rapidly erased piece by piece, because the people who cared most about these places often had little power to influence government decisions.

The NHPA sought to change that. As President Johnson explained at its signing, the bill aimed “to give part of our country back to its people.” The NHPA codified the basic infrastructure of preservation as we now know it, creating the National Register of Historic Places, State Historic Preservation Offices, and the Historic Preservation Fund. These programs empowered states and communities to document their heritage and provide financial resources and technical know-how to help revitalize old places to meet modern needs. Another important provision of the law, known as Section 106, required federal agencies to consider the effects that new government undertakings would have on historic properties, and give the public and other stakeholders an opportunity to weigh in on the matter before decisions are finalized.

After the bill’s signing, America kept building, but with a new expectation that federal agencies would consider the impact on irreplaceable historic sites before government-backed projects moved forward. Over the six decades that followed, that process became part of how the government has approached thousands of decisions—involving highways, public buildings, infrastructure projects, and other federally funded or permitted development.

Section 106 has helped to avoid unnecessary damage to historic places, improving federal projects without blocking them, and giving communities a way to speak out in defense of their defining historic places. The Section 106 process has produced win-win outcomes across the country. In Leavenworth, Kansas, dormitories built for wounded Civil War soldiers were saved from demolition and rehabbed to create modern, affordable apartments for veterans. In New Orleans, community voices helped defeat a plan to build an expressway through the heart of the French Quarter. In Pasadena, California, preservationists helped defeat a freeway plan that would have bulldozed hundreds of historic bungalows and thousands of mature trees.

These lessons matter today because the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 currently advancing in Congress also contains provisions that would dramatically alter and harm Section 106 and remove hard-won protections of our nation’s historic resources.

Proposed changes in the bill go beyond streamlining and efficiency—they threaten its purpose and its proven benefits. If passed in its current form, the larger permitting reform package would fundamentally gut the country’s historic preservation framework by transforming meaningful consultation with communities, states, and Tribal Nations—a process designed to identify and resolve harmful impacts to historic places—into little more than a procedural box to be checked by federal agencies disconnected from local history.

These changes don’t promote progress. They are a step backward. History shows us what could happen.

At the National Trust for Historic Preservation, our mission is to help communities save the places that tell the full American story. People around the country are passionate about this work, because once irreplaceable historic places are lost there’s no way to bring them back. Streamlining processes and increasing the efficiency of permitting are worthy goals, but they don’t require silencing community voices and endangering our nation’s heritage. The American people deserve a meaningful role in decisions that will shape their communities for generations.

In the years that followed World War II, Americans learned what could happen when the federal government rushed forward without adequately considering the places and communities in its path. Sixty years ago this fall, Congress recognized what was at stake and responded by giving ordinary Americans a seat at the table. Their voices and collective wisdom helped protect our heritage and made our communities better. We should celebrate this legacy and the law that made it possible—and carry it forward.