McCollum Remarks to the American Architectural Foundation Oculus Award Luncheon
Good afternoon.
Thank you, Mr. Ayers for the kind introduction. I appreciate all that you and your staff are doing to keep Congress working while you are restoring our beautiful Capitol dome. Thank you for your leadership.
I am thrilled to be here today!
The American Architectural Foundation is playing an important role in driving an agenda that places cultural heritage, historic preservation, and architectural restoration at its forefront.
I want to commend the vision and tremendous work of AAF President and CEO Ron Bogle, along with Mr. Thom Minner, Director of AAF’s Center for Design and Cultural Heritage. Ron and Thom are working with me to get Congress re-engaged as a partner in protecting and restoring our country’s historic treasures, treasures that unite communities and connect the past to the future.
We are here today to honor a company for more than 50 years of accomplishments in historic preservation. Congratulations to Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates on receiving the 2015 Oculus award.
WJE has a long record of contributing to projects across the U.S. and around the world. They have an office in Minnesota, but I was surprised to learn how often we worked at the same places.
In the early 1970’s my first full-time job was in downtown St. Paul in the First National Bank building. Later, WJE worked on the First National Bank building. As a Minnesota state legislator, I spent eight years working in our beautiful Cass Gilbert designed state capitol building. WJE has worked on the capitol. And, one of my proudest accomplishments in Congress has been to help secure the funding for the renovation of St. Paul’s historic 1920’s era train station – Union Depot. The Depot’s $250 million restoration was completed in 2013 and, again, WJE worked on the project.
Again, congratulations WJE on your tremendous record of success!
At the beginning of this year I became the lead Democrat on the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. Each year our subcommittee produces a bill that provides over $30 billion to fund the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Smithsonian museums, and a number of other federal agencies. It is an important portfolio that funds hundreds of millions of acres of federal land, our national parks, tribal nations, and many of America’s most important historic sites.
Over the past months my office has been engaged with federal stakeholders and AAF to review the federal government’s role in historic preservation. It is absolutely clear that without leadership from Congress and the Obama Administration our nation’s most vulnerable treasures are at risk of being lost to time, decay, or neglect. Unfortunately, Congress and the Administration are neglecting our nation’s treasures and this political apathy is costing the American people our cultural heritage.
In the 2016 House and Senate Interior-Environment appropriations bills, approximately $61 million is allocated to the Historic Preservation Fund – primarily to support historic preservation offices in states, territories and tribal nations. This amount represents less than half of the $150 million authorized funding level and it is nearly $20 million less than was spent on historic preservation in 2010.
This abandonment of historic preservation runs counter to the desires of our constituents. States, local communities, non-profits, the foundation community, and the private sector want the federal government to be a real partner. All across our country communities come together and identifying endangered historic and cultural assets that uniquely reflect local character and identity. It may be a historic building, a church, an archeological site, or a collection representing a moment in a community’s history that exemplifies a unique piece of our American history. And, communities are asking for help – both technical and financial – because they want their valued asset to be preserved, protected, and restored for the next generation.
From 1999 to 2010 help was available. During those years, Congress provided modest,
but critical funding for a program called Save America’s Treasures. $318 million in federal funding was appropriated for SAT grants over twelve years – that is less than $1 per American for a decade of investments. Those grants required a dollar-for-dollar match which leveraged over $400 million in additional funds.
But, since 2011, Congress has not provided a single dollar to Save America’s Treasures.
During SATs twelve years, more than 1,200 grants were awarded to restore 327 historic properties; 247 projects to restore collections, artifacts, artistic works, and documents were funded; and, 341 National Historic Landmarks were preserved.
The treasures saved include: the restoration of Rosa Parks’ bus; restoring Little Rock’s Central High School; saving Ansel Adam’s prints, negatives and equipment; restoring an 18th century South Carolina plantation house; preserving the ruins at Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park; and repairing and preserving the 1812 flag that flew over Fort McHenry that inspired the Star Spangle Banner.
In my Minnesota congressional district, a $150,000 SAT grant matched by community contributions helped to fund a sprinkler system in the longest serving Czech-Slovak Hall in the U.S. build in 1879. This grant saved the Sokol Hall while other ethic halls have been lost to fire. On Saturday I’ll be attending an event at the Sokol Hall and it is a wonderful center of community activity.
SAT has been an example of a public-private partnership that keeps history, culture, identity, and democracy vibrant and sustainable in towns and cities all across America.
In my view SAT grants have acted as venture capital that sparks a community into action. It is an investment that inspires a community and donors to invest time, money, volunteer support – all to the benefit of the project. A good project with an SAT grant becomes a great project. Without that federal support many projects will never get done and national treasures are now being lost forever.
I am passionate about restoring federal funding for SAT because I have a partner that shares my enthusiasm. That partner is the American Architectural Foundation. The National Park Service is SAT’s lead federal agency while AAF is SAT’s official non-profit partner.
Other federal partners include the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
They all have valuable technical capacity to contribute – if federal funds are made available.
In 2016 our nation will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Next year also marks the 100th anniversary of our National Parks. As citizens who care about historic preservation, now is the time to get organized and energized. Working together, we need to get Congress investing once again in Saving America’s Treasures!
I am thrilled to be working with AAF and other partners who share the vision that preserving America’s past helps to build America’s future.
It has been wonderful being here with you. Thank you AAF for the invitation to be here today.
Thank you.
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