A governor-appointed position and, typically, a member of a state historic preservation agency, the S H P O provides project review and compliance of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The Department of Transportation generally uses the Section 106 process as a method by which a cultural resource's significance is determined for a federal undertaking under Section 4(f).
The State Historic Preservation Office is a federally mandated office that is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF). In 1976, Congress specifically authorized the deposit of a portion of Outer Continental Shelf oil lease revenues into an Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) to carry out the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA). Annual appropriations to the HPF provide matching grants to State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs).