Congress Passes Bills Affecting Civil War Battlefield Preservation
By Deborah Fitts
September 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Shortly before going into its annual August recess, Congress passed two pieces of legislation affecting federal spending on battlefield preservation.

The spending bill for the Department of the Interior, which passed both houses of Congress in late July and was signed into law Aug. 2, includes $3 million for Civil War battlefield acquisition.

“It’s $2 million less than this year,” noted Civil War Preservation Trust spokesman Jim Campi, “so we’re a little bit disappointed. But it’s $1 million more than in the president’s budget.”

Campi noted that several battlefields also came in for specially earmarked funds for land acquisition. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park got $2 million, and there was $1.8 million for Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, $1.2 million for Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, and $1 million for the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

The other bill that Campi said would prove “helpful” affects the legislation that for years has provided transportation-enhancement monies to states. Since 1993 more than $20 million in such funding has gone to Civil War sites in more than a dozen states, but some states have balked, saying the money should not go to battlefields.

Campi said the new legislation, dubbed Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy of Users, or TEA-LU, specifies that the monies are appropriate for historic sites like battlefields. The money is levied by the federal government in the form of gasoline taxes and then returned to the states. The highway bill was signed by the president Aug. 10. [See separate story about Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park funds.]

“This is a very big deal,” said Campi. “It’s going to be of enormous benefit for groups who continue to meet resis-tance from transportation officials.”

Trust President Jim Lighthizer pioneered use of transportation-enhancement funding for battlefield preservation sev-eral years ago, employing such funding to protect the Antietam battlefield when he was secretary of transportation in Maryland.