ABSTRACT
In a single brief and admirably to-the-point paragraph, the Court of Appeals held that “the National Historic Preservation Act establishes no clear duty for agencies to evaluate potential historic sites within a certain time frame or in a certain manner.”4 Echoing the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s oft-cited (if somewhat murkier) 1996 opinion in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. Blanck,5 the Court observed that the National Historic Preservation Act establishes for federal agencies two principal statutory duties: the Section 106 duty to “take into account the effect of the undertaking on any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register”;6 and the Section 110 duty to “establish . . . a preservation program for the identification, evaluation, and nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, and [for the] protection of historic properties.”7 Because the Tribe did not allege that the Army Corps had failed to meet either of these affirmative responsibilities, arguing only that the Army Corps had failed to act quickly enough in meeting its Section 110 obligations, the Court determined it had no choice but to dismiss the Tribe’s mandamus claim.
