Heritage Business Journal

While government spending in the United States, like many other countries, is contracting from austerity measures, there are some areas of growth. In a 2011 webinar by Deltek based upon the U.S. President’s 2012 Budget Request, the only areas of spending growth in the construction and rehabilitation of physical assets (the things that drive Section 106 undertakings) were energy and health facilities. Energy spending, which is primarily for fulfilling energy efficiency and renewable energy mandates, will expand 41.2 percent over 2010 actuals to $10.5 billion. A large portion of the funding will be spent on renovating and retrofitting older government buildings, many of which are historic. Spending on veterans hospitals and other health care facilities will expand 69.0 percent to $3.1 billion. Many of these facilities also are historic. If this increase in funding is realized, heritage compliance companies in the U.S. should see a rise in demand for services focused on the built environment. Federal spending on projects producing significant amounts of archaeological compliance work may be decreasing in 2012, but this should be offset by a large increase in demand for compliance services involving historians, architectural historians, and historic architects.