The U.S. House approved a bill Wednesday that would create the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area in Illinois and authorize $1 million to fund it annually for 15 years.

Logan is one of 42 central Illinois counties included in the region.

The legislation, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, was included in a larger bill that created six new national heritage areas, as well as funding authority for nine others. The bill now goes to the Senate, where U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is pushing for its passage.

The Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area would "recognize and interpret the distinctive role the region played in shaping the man who would become the 16th president of the United States, and how Abraham Lincoln's life left its traces in the stories, folklore, buildings, streetscapes, and landscapes of the region," according to the bill.

Funding authorized in the bill would allow grants matched dollar-for-dollar by a state or local government or a private entity to be given to groups seeking to carry out the mission of the heritage area.

Congress designates such areas where natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources are considered representative of the American experience.

If the bill becomes law, a management plan approved by the National Park Service will have to be developed.

The management plan would contain a resource inventory, goals and strategies, potential funding sources and a business plan.

The Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, a 9-year-old nonprofit organization that also encompasses Logan County, will manage the area.

The Looking for Lincoln group, headed by Nicky Stratton, works with a consortium of central Illinois communities, including Lincoln, and historic sites whose common thread is Abraham Lincoln.

"By designating this heritage area, we can tie these many Lincoln sites together in order to create a tapestry that will allow us to better understand the influences that shaped President Lincoln's life," LaHood told the House.

The bill also would create national heritage areas in parts of Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The measure would also extend for 15 years the authorization of nine existing national heritage areas that are set to expire in 2012.

The bill also would create national heritage areas focusing on Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Muscle Shoals, Ala.; Freedom's Way, devoted to the nation's founding, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire; and the Santa Cruz Valley in Arizona.