On October 18, 2004, President George W. Bush signed Public Law 108-340 (S. 1687). The “Manhattan Project National Historical Park Study Act” directed the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the national significance, suitability, and feasibility of designating one or more historic sites of the Manhattan Project for potential inclusion in the National Park System. The Act authorized the appropriation of funds necessary to carry out the study, but no funding was included in the FY05 federal budget.

Discussions on how to move forward on implementation of the Act took place on March 7-8, 2005. The March 7 meeting hosted by the Atomic Heritage Foundation took place on Capitol Hill and included the National Park Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Smithsonian, the Department of Energy, Congressional staffers, and representatives of communities and local governments from the Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Tri-Cities areas. 

At an informal working meeting of many of the same participants on March 8, an agreement was reached that the Park Service would evaluate the significant amount of material that already existed regarding the Manhattan Project resources identified in the Act to determine what additional material would be required and what completion of the study would cost. In addition, it was agreed that the Department of Energy’s Office of History and Heritage Resources would provide the Park Service with material from the communities and the Department of Energy and maintain a website containing a chronology of Park Service requests and other relevant information, including meetings and legislative developments.

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