Cultural Resources Protection Law - Involving Civil Practitioners in Case Strategies

The sessions shown below address activities associated with the Presentation on Cultural Resources Protection Law. There are sessions addressing Civil Penalty Aspects, Civil Penalty Provisions, Policy Considerations, Benefits of Civil Penalties, Civil Penalties and Other Claims and Offenses, Civil Penalty Process and Criminal to Civil Examples.

Cultural Resources Protection Law – Involving Civil Practitioners in Case Strategies and ARPA Civil Penalties Videos

  1. Introduction ( 01:49)Description: Elise Foster provides an overview of civil enforcement of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. She covers the statutory and regulatory provisions governing civil proceedings, the policy, and practical considerations germane to civil enforcement under ARPA and a step-by-step description of the administrative process.
  • Transcript: Introduction
  2. Civil Penalty Aspects  (08:40)Description: The purpose of this section is to introduce the civil penalty component of the ARPA. As you know, a violation of the ARPA can result in both criminal and civil penalties. ARPA is found at 16 U.S.C. 478a and the Uniform Regulations are found in various titles of the Code of Federal Regulations, including 36 CFR 296.1 for the Forest Service and 43 CFR 7.1 for the Bureau of Land Management and other Interior agencies.

  • Transcript: Civil Penalty Aspects
  3. Civil Penalty Provisions Cases (05:46)Description: The important points about the civil penalty provisions of the statute are: Number one, the civil penalty is a strict liability offense. As you'll notice by reading the civil penalty provisions and comparing them to the criminal penalty provisions, there is no intent requirement and there is no knowingly attached to the civil penalty provision as there is to the criminal provision. Civil penalties are limited to violations of either the ARPA regulations or the requirements of an ARPA permit. Therefore, and this is an important point, the three prohibitions in the Act that we discussed earlier are not all punishable by civil penalties. Only the prohibitions which are contained in the regulations can be punished by civil penalties. Thirdly, the Federal Land Manager may reduce the penalty or assess no penalty. In the administrative civil penalty proceeding, the Federal Land Manager has discretion to determine whether a civil penalty is assessed and the amount of the civil penalty.

  • Transcript: Civil Penalty Provisions Cases
  4. Policy Considerations (07:45)Description: We are going to talk a little bit about policy considerations for civil ARPA enforcement. Why would one choose to proceed with a civil penalty case, and where does the money go if some money is collected in a civil penalty case?

  • Transcript: Policy Considerations
  5. Benefits of Civil Penalties (02:34)Description: You might be wondering what's so great about civil penalties? Well, there are a few things that are great about them. Number one, penalties can be used directly on the damaged site to perform restoration and repair, data recovery and to protect the site from future damage. It's important for agencies and it's important for staffs on the ground. It's also important for those who are the respondents of a civil penalty Notice of Violation. They are more likely to agree to pay a civil penalty if they know it's going to be used locally rather than just going to a Department of treasury in Washington D.C.

  • Transcript: Benefits of Civil Penalties
  6. Civil Penalties and Other Claims and Offenses (04:13)Description: In this session, we talk about pursuing civil penalty cases in conjunction with other claims and offenses. ARPA violations, particularly civil ARPA violations, seem too often occur in conjunction with other crimes or offenses on federal land. Examples of some of these are unauthorized excavation or unauthorized roadwork, timber theft, starting fires illegally or general damage to federal land. Collecting jointly isn't very hard. It just requires coordination between staffs and offices that handle collection of claims either for the agency and for the United States generally.

  • Transcript: Civil Penalties and Other Claims and Offenses
  7. Civil Penalty Process (07:31)Description: In this session we talk about the civil penalty process and how one proceeds to initiate a civil penalty case and each of the steps during the process. In order to initiate a civil penalty case, the agency issues a Notice of Violation. We want to point out that our citations are to 36 CFR 296. Those are the ARPA Uniform Regulations. And if you are working with the Department of Interior, you would be using 43 CFR 7 point and then the subsection following that point would be the same number. Because they're Uniform Regulations, they were reprinted in several CFR titles.

  • Transcript: Civil Penalty Process
  8. Criminal to Civil Example (04:48)Description: Here we are going to show some photos of an ARPA civil case which originally began as an ARPA criminal prosecution but ultimately resulted in a civil collection -- civil action which resulted in the collection of civil penalties.

  • Transcript: Criminal to Civil Example
  9. Conclusion (00:48)Description: Here we want to point out that enforcement of ARPA requires coordination of law enforcement, resource and legal staffs. The second point is, ARPA criminal and civil penalties are tools. They're designed to protect archaeological resources. Number three is the law allows the use of funds collected to restore or repair damage caused by violation of the ARPA. Four, the future of our nonrenewable archaeological resources depends on enforcement of ARPA and other resource protection laws and the public awareness that results from such enforcement. Finally, there are persons in resources available to assist you in ARPA cases.

  • Transcript: Conclusion

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