(a) Undertaking means any new or continuing projects or program activities supported in whole or in part through FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 contracts, grants, subsidies, loans, or other forms of funding assistance. This does not include any actual construction by FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354.

(b) National Historic Preservation Act. The National Register means the National Register of Historic Places, which is a register of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects, significant in American history, architecture, archeology, and culture maintained by the Secretary of the Interior under the authority of section 2(b) of the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and section 101(a)(1) of the National Preservation Act. The National Register is published in its entirety in the Federal Register each year in February. Addenda are published on the first Tuesday of each month.

(c) National Register Property means a district, site, building, structure, or object included in the National Register.

(d) Property eligible for inclusion in the National Register means any district, site, building, structure, or object which the Secretary of the Interior determines is likely to meet the National Register criteria.

(e) State Historic Preservation Officer

(SHPO) means the official within each State, designated by the Governor at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, to administer the National Register and historic preservation grants program and to coordinate preservation planning within the State.

(f) Criteria of effect means when any condition of an undertaking causes or may cause any change, beneficial or adverse, in the scientific, historical, architectural, archeological, or cultural character of a National Register property that qualifies the property under the National Register criteria.

(g) Historical and archeological assessment means a determination by the FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 State Director using the criteria of effect as a guide, as to whether a proposed undertaking may have an effect upon any properties located within the project area which are included or eligible for inclusion in the National Register.

(h) National Register criteria means the following criteria established by the Secretary of the Interior for use in evaluating and determining the eligibility of properties for listing in the National Register: The quality of significance in American History, Architecture, Archeology, and the culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects of State and local importance, that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association; and

(1) That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

(2) That are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or

(3) That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

(4) That have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

(i) FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 official means the FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 County Supervisor, the FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 State Director or his designated representative.

(j) Project area means those geographical or legally defined areas directly under or to be under the applicants control that are affected by the undertaking such as building sites, easements, rights-of-way, leasehold interests and those areas which are directly and significantly impacted by the undertaking.

(k) Advisory council means the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Suite 430, 1522 K Street NW., Washington, DC 20005, created by title II of Pub. L. 89-665 and charged with the responsibility of advising the President, Congress, and others on matters relating to historic preservation.

(l) HA as used in this regulation is an abbreviation of the term “scientific, prehistorical, historical, and archeological.”