Historic preservation organizations in Colorado Springs, the remainder of Colorado and across the nation are organizing to resist a recent effort to relax and weaken historic preservation laws in the United States.

In Washington, D.C., the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has adopted a plan that will greatly reduce the powers of the United States government to protect National Register Historic Districts and National Register Historic Places from being either altered in character or totally removed.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has been loaded with President Donald Trump’s allies and has moved to relax a 60-year-old historic preservation law that requires U.S. government-financed projects go through a rigorous consideration process before they can change or remove U.S. designated historic sites.

El Paso County, which includes Colorado Springs, has more than 90 National Register Historic Districts and National Register Historic Places.

The National Register Historic Districts in the county include the Old North End National Register Historic District and the North Weber-Wahsatch National Register Historic District.

The National Register of Historic Places includes, among many others, the former El Paso County Courthouse (now the Pioneers Museum), the Colorado Springs City Hall, the former Santa Fe railroad station and the Cliff House Hotel in Manitou Springs.

The types of projects that could harm historic sites in the United States are new U.S. highways and new U.S. irrigation canals, for example.

The requirement that U.S. government projects respect historic districts and historic places is in Section 106. The changes proposed by Trump supporters on the Advisory Council call for taking what are now requirements and making them voluntary procedures.

Thus, legal language requiring U.S. government projects to “avoid, minimize or mitigate” project effects has been removed.

The proposed changes would greatly reduce the role of state governments and local communities in opposing U.S. government projects that could potentially harm historic sites.

Local opportunities for input on the importance of historic preservation to local interests will be greatly weakened.

The changes by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that will weaken historic preservation will be subject to a 30-day comment period. During that time, those who oppose the changes can make their opinions known.

Residents of National Register Historic Districts and owners and custodians of National Register Historic Places are encouraged to take advantage of the 30-day comment period and make their voices heard in opposition to the changes.

That process is already underway among historic preservation interests in El Paso County and the remainder of Colorado.

The Trump forces are said to be making these major changes in the historic preservation process in the United States because national historic preservation laws are making it difficult for Trump to build his desired “Triumphal Arch” in Washington, D.C.

The Trump people argue the present historic preservation rules are unnecessarily “slowing down” and making difficult the proposed arch. and other Trump projects for the capital city.

At the same time the Trump associates change the historic preservation rules in the nation’s capital, they have to make the same changes for the country at large.

It all fits with the general tendency under the Trump administration to do away with longtime protections for such values as historic preservation and sharply change the way these issues are handled in the United States.

And most of the Trump-inspired changes have a general tendency to reduce regulation and simultaneously protection of things highly valued by many of the American people.

Also losing protections under the proposed new Trump rules will be Colorado state historic sites such as Bent’s Old Fort on the eastern plains of Colorado.

Bob Loevy is a retired professor of political science at Colorado College who writes about Colorado and national politics.