The Interior Department last year proposed rules to streamline the process but those rules have not yet been finalized. Image: Bob Korn/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffMuch still remains for federal agencies to do to comply with a 1990 requiring them to review Native American human remains and cultural artifacts for possible return to their sources, the GAO has said.
It said that the review process for human remains held by agencies and museums is only 48 percent complete, while the process for reviewing cultural items is 71 percent complete. That process involves consultation with tribes and tribal organizations for identifying possible affiliation for a return.
“Tribes and tribal organizations have expressed concerns about how some agencies are implementing NAGPRA’s consultation requirements. We previously recommended that federal agencies take steps to improve tribal consultation processes in other contexts. Failure to consult with Tribes, or to consult effectively, may result in irrevocable damage to cultural resources,” it said.
It added that the Interior Department last year proposed rules to streamline the process but those rules have not yet been finalized.
Agencies meanwhile “have taken a number of approaches” to enforcing other aspects of that law, making it a crime to newly remove remains or objects or to sell, buy or transport them for sale or profit. However, GAO said that “resource constraints, competing priorities, and limitations with data to support decision-making have hampered agencies’ efforts.”
GAO said that it made 55 recommendations in a series of reports dating to 2010, of which agencies have carried out 47; it recommended implementing the remaining eight.
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