By Ruth Ellery, Tewatati
This is Part 2 of Section 106 Under Pressure, Tewatati’s series on proposed changes to the National Historic Preservation Act. Part 1 laid out how a Senate permitting bill and a draft federal rule would change the way Tribes are heard on sacred places. This installment looks at the small Tribal offices that do that work, and at the provisions that would put them on a federal clock.
When Steven Concho testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 29, 2025, as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pueblo of Acoma, he described an office stretched thin. “Our office manages dozens of consultation requests across four states every month with minimal staff and limited short-term federal funding,” he told senators. “Like many tribal historic preservation offices, Acoma operates on roughly $100,000 a year, barely enough to cover salaries, travel, and essential operations.”
Under questioning, he put it more plainly: “we have thousands of requests that come in through my office yearly and with a staff of only maybe one or two.”
Offices like that are what the permitting bill, S. 5653, would hold to new deadlines. Its sponsors say it would speed up permitting. Tribal leaders say it would punish under-funded offices for delays they did not cause.
What the clock would look like
Under the bill’s text, if a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer “fails to respond within 30 days of receipt of a request for review of any report or finding,” the federal official “shall proceed” without that response. If consultation misses its deadline, each State and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer involved, along with senior federal executives who supervise the review, “shall spend not less than 50 percent of the workweek” to fix the failure.
The bill would also require the Interior Secretary to evaluate each Tribal program at least every two years. A program would not be considered consistent with the law if its officer “does not regularly comply with timelines for consultation, complete consultation expeditiously, or meet required metrics.” A program that fails would have its federal contracts and Historic Preservation Fund grants suspended. If it is still failing after two years, “the Secretary shall assume all or part of the functions of the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer.”
The Congressional Research Service, in its analysis of the bill, noted that the same timeline language, as applied to state programs, is left undefined: “The bill does not define or provide additional guidance as to how these standards would be applied.”
‘Bellyaching of capitalist developers’
Kurt Dongoske, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pueblo of Zuni, answered Tewatati’s request for comment by email on Nov. 2. “I’ve been the Zuni THPO for the past 18 years and have represented Tribes in consultation with federal agencies in NEPA and Section 106 process for over 35 years,” he wrote.
He called the legislation an “act to gut the National Historic Preservation Act by Congressional representatives that are clearly unfamiliar with the process and are listening more to the bellyaching of capitalist developers.”
Dongoske also shared a letter from the Zuni Governor “regarding the proposed changes to 106” and offered to answer further questions. Tewatati has not reported on that letter’s contents here.
Growth, and the money behind it
The program has grown fast. CRS counted 235 approved Tribal Historic Preservation Officers as of January 2026, up from 12 in 1996. The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, in an Oct. 15 release, said the 238th and 239th had been approved “just a few weeks ago.”
According to CRS, grants for these offices have risen 71% over the last decade after adjusting for inflation, but “whether this increase is adequate to keep pace with the increase in authorized THPOs has been debated.”
Tribal organizations and allied groups made the capacity argument in an Oct. 23 letter to New Mexico’s congressional delegation: “Congress should address chronic capacity shortages through sustained funding, rather than penalizing Tribal governments for failing to meet accelerated development schedules.”
What early consultation can do
Concho told senators about what Acoma calls the “Acoma Model.” On a proposed CO2 pipeline crossing 14 miles of Acoma lands, the Pueblo entered into a cost reimbursement agreement with the company so its cultural experts could work alongside the project archaeologist and engineers. “Together, in six weeks,” he testified, the team “identified more than 150 cultural sites, including 90 that would have never been recognized through standard archeological methods, and successfully rerouted the pipeline corridor to avoid them entirely.”
Section 106, he said, “does not hand tribes a veto. When tribes are consulted early and properly, in my experience, almost all projects have moved forward efficiently and collaboratively.”
Acoma Governor Charles Riley made a related case to KESQ News Channel 3 at an Oct. 19 gathering of Tribal leaders in Palm Springs, Calif. “It’s part of us. It’s not an object. It’s not a landscape. All those things are part of who we are,” Riley said. “We have to be good ancestors for those unborn into the future.”
The other side
Supporters argue faster reviews are possible. Utah State Historic Preservation Officer Chris Merritt told the same Senate committee that his team reviews “about 1,500 federal undertakings per year,” that “only 3.2 percent of those result in adverse effects,” and that Utah aims to cut its 30-day review period in half.
The Institute for Progress, which supports the bill, argues in a policy brief that it would write Tribal consultation protections into law as a shield against a draft rewrite of federal preservation rules by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. That draft is under White House review. IFP notes that the bill authorizes $200 million for State and Tribal preservation offices.
The bill may yet change. Ben Schifman, IFP’s listed contact for the brief, told Tewatati by email on Nov. 2: “I understand a manager’s amendment is coming that may make substantial changes to some of these THPO assumption provisions.” Roll Call reported on Oct. 22 that the bill’s four lead senators expect to introduce a manager’s amendment incorporating feedback they receive ahead of the vote.
Opponents dispute that Tribes cause delays. The 106 Strong coalition says that of roughly 120,000 federal undertakings reviewed each year, 98 percent end with no adverse effect, about eight a year result in litigation, and most reviews are completed in 16 days.
The Senate is scheduled to vote at 5:30 p.m. ET on Monday, Nov. 9, on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2347, the vehicle for the permitting package, according to the Senate calendar.
Concho; Kathy Felipe of Acoma’s Historic Preservation Office; Gov. Riley’s office; Hopi Cultural Preservation Office director Stewart Koyiyumptewa; Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman; NATHPO; Merritt; the offices of Sens. Mike Lee and Martin Heinrich; the ACHP; and Sovereign Energy did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
Next, in Part 3 on Wednesday, Nov. 4: the ACHP’s plan to remake Section 106 by regulation.
Featured photo: A thunderstorm over Mount Taylor, near Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, July 2017. Mount Taylor is among the New Mexico places named in the Oct. 23 letter opposing the bill. Photo: Ybratcher / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).
Ruth Ellery writes features and human-interest stories for Tewatati.
