Opinion ID: 691304
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is the Secretary's failure to disapprove an undertaking?

Text: 13 Section 106 requires each federal agency to take into account the effect of [a proposed] undertaking upon historic properties and to afford the [ACHP] a reasonable opportunity to comment with regard to such undertaking prior to the agency's funding or licensing it. Accordingly, federal authority to fund or to license a project can render the project an undertaking, but the decision of the funding or licensing agency is not itself an undertaking. The plaintiffs' contrary suggestion is peculiar indeed. If the Secretary's decision by inaction not to disapprove Turkey's proposal under the FMA were an undertaking, then so too would be every decision he makes. The plaintiffs have no interest, however, in having the ACHP review the internal decision-making process of the State Department; their interest is in having the ACHP review Turkey's plan to demolish and reconstruct its chancery before the State Department considers the proposal. 14 The State Department's failure to disapprove Turkey's proposal may have been a prerequisite to Turkey's project going forward, but it cannot itself be an undertaking within the meaning of the statute. Therefore, if Sec. 106 applies to this case, it is only because the demolition and reconstruction of Turkey's chancery is an undertaking and is funded or licensed by the Secretary. 15