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16 USC § 5401 - Findings

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-99. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

The Congress finds and declares the following:

(1) The United States is a nation with a rich maritime history, and it is desirable to foster in the American public a greater awareness and appreciation of the role of maritime endeavors in our Nation’s history and culture.

(2) The maritime historical and cultural foundations of the Nation should be preserved as a part of our community life and development.

(3) National, State, and local groups have been working independently to preserve the maritime heritage of the United States.

(4) Historic resources significant to the Nation’s maritime heritage are being lost or substantially altered, often inadvertently, with increasing frequency.

(5) The preservation of this irreplaceable maritime heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans.

(6) The current governmental and nongovernmental historic preservation programs and activities are inadequate to ensure future generations a genuine opportunity to appreciate and enjoy the rich maritime heritage of our Nation.

(7) A coordinated national program is needed immediately to redress the adverse consequences of a period of indifference during which the maritime heritage of the United States has become endangered and to ensure the future preservation of the Nation’s maritime heritage.

(8) A national maritime heritage policy would greatly increase public awareness of, and participation in, the preservation of the Nation’s maritime heritage.

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The Congress finds and declares the following:

(1) The United States is a nation with a rich maritime history, and it is desirable to foster in the American public a greater awareness and appreciation of the role of maritime endeavors in our Nation’s history and culture.

(2) The maritime historical and cultural foundations of the Nation should be preserved as a part of our community life and development.

(3) National, State, and local groups have been working independently to preserve the maritime heritage of the United States.

(4) Historic resources significant to the Nation’s maritime heritage are being lost or substantially altered, often inadvertently, with increasing frequency.

(5) The preservation of this irreplaceable maritime heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans.

(6) The current governmental and nongovernmental historic preservation programs and activities are inadequate to ensure future generations a genuine opportunity to appreciate and enjoy the rich maritime heritage of our Nation.

(7) A coordinated national program is needed immediately to redress the adverse consequences of a period of indifference during which the maritime heritage of the United States has become endangered and to ensure the future preservation of the Nation’s maritime heritage.

(8) A national maritime heritage policy would greatly increase public awareness of, and participation in, the preservation of the Nation’s maritime heritage.

Source

(Pub. L. 103–451, § 2,Nov. 2, 1994, 108 Stat. 4769.)

Short Title

Section 1 ofPub. L. 103–451provided that: “This Act [enacting this chapter] may be cited as the ‘National Maritime Heritage Act of 1994’.”

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

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For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

16 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

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