A federal bill moving through the U.S. Senate could strip the preservation rules that helped Dublin uncover a long-lost African American cemetery in 2020.
According to NBC4, Ohio State Historic Preservation Officer Diana Welling pointed to Dublin's Brown-Harris Cemetery as a case study in why the current system works. Archaeologists found the cemetery, lost in the early 1920s, at the site of a new hospital on Shier Rings Road.
The Section 106 consultation process under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) gave the state, the community and descendants of the Brown and Harris families a voice in the project. Welling said the process turned the site into a restored, active cemetery with markers, fencing and landscaping.
"It really became this community project that otherwise would've been lost to history," Welling said.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, introduced Sept. 30 by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, proposes broad changes to federal permitting for energy and infrastructure projects. Among them: rewriting Section 106 of the NHPA, the 60-year-old law requiring federal agencies to consider public feedback before funding projects that might disturb historic sites.
Welling called the proposed changes the most significant to Section 106 in its history. She and Frank Quinn of Heritage Ohio said the bill would remove public input and hand all decision-making authority to federal agencies. A consulting party that does not respond within 30 days could be bypassed entirely, according to a legal analysis by Davis Wright Tremaine.
Welling said she was part of a working group that gave Congress recommendations on streamlining permitting without gutting preservation protections. "Unfortunately, those recommendations were largely ignored," she said.
The bill faces a cloture vote as soon as Nov. 9, according to preservation experts cited in Good Morning Wilton reporting. It would still need to pass the House and could change before enactment.
State Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Delaware County Republican, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 22 urging Congress to reject the changes. State Sen. Bill DeMora, a Columbus Democrat, co-sponsored the measure. The resolution is in the Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee and has not left committee.
"No one from the federal government's gonna know any of these things," DeMora told NBC4. "Local people know what they need to protect."
More than 600 public, private and nonprofit organizations have signed an open letter to Congress opposing the proposed changes, according to the resolution's text.
Supporters of the federal bill, including state Sen. Shane Wilkin, a Hillsboro Republican, argue the permitting process needs to move faster for energy projects. Ohio has more than 4,000 listings on the National Register of Historic Places and 78 National Historic Landmarks, according to the resolution.
Dublin dedicated the restored Brown-Harris Cemetery on June 28, 2024, at 6540 Shier Rings Road. The site includes at least 22 confirmed graves, with a grave marker dating to 1854. The city partnered with the Brown and Harris families and engineering firm EMH&T to preserve the grounds and build a monument.
