House Passes National Heritage Area Bill, Even as Momentum Builds against NHAs

On Wednesday the House of Representatives approved the Celebrating America’s Heritage Act (H.R. 1483) which would send over $135 million of federal pork to special interest groups in select members’ districts. The bill would create six new national heritage areas, including the controversial Journey Through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) heritage area, and increase federal funding for nine existing heritage areas by 50 percent.

The bill passed by a vote of 291-122, along mostly party lines.

Although the bill passed, the measure faced more opposition than any heritage area bill in 13 years. The National Center for Public Policy Research says this is a sign that the momentum is building against heritage areas.

National heritage areas are creations of Congress in which special interest groups, whose work at times has been funded through secret congressional earmarks, team up with the National Park Service to influence decisions over local land use previously made exclusively by elected local governments and private landowners.

Donald Pongrace, a lobbyist with Akin Gump, wrote the legislative language for JTHG and serves on the board of the JTHG Partnership, according to the group’s website. JTHG is one of the special interest groups that would receive $1 million per year under the initiative. Mr. Pongrace’s wife, Olwen Pongrace, works at the JTHG Partnership as vice president.

Earlier, the JTHG Partnership received a one million-dollar earmark through the 2005 transportation bill. At the time, the group was not incorporated.

H.R. 1483 passed despite the objections of Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), Virgil Goode (R-Va.), Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.), Thelma Drake (R-Va.), J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), who represent three of the four states that would be affected by The Journey Through Hallowed Ground heritage area designation. The heritage area would cut through Representative Barlett’s and Representative Goode’s districts, posing a direct threat to the rights of their constituents. It could present problems for constituents of Representatives Forbes, Pitts, and Goodlatte, as the members’ districts are near the Route 15 corridor. House members were provided with a map number (P90/80,000), but not the map, outlining the heritage area’s boundaries.