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Title 16, ConservationRelease 119-102

§715e Examination of Title; Easements and Reservations

Title 16 › CHAPTER 7 — PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY GAME AND INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS › SUBCHAPTER III — MIGRATORY BIRD CONSERVATION › § 715e

Last updated Aug 21, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Secretary of the Interior may take needed actions and spend money to get clear title to lands the United States acquires under this subchapter. No payment for those lands may be made until the title is approved as satisfactory by the Attorney General or his designee. The United States may still acquire land even if the seller keeps rights-of-way, easements, or reservations that, in the Secretary’s judgment, will not interfere with the land’s use under this subchapter. Any such retained rights must follow rules the Secretary sets for using, protecting, and managing the land as bird sanctuaries or wildlife refuges, and the deed or lease must state that those rights are subject to those rules now or as the Secretary may prescribe later.

Full Legal Text

Title 16, §715e

Conservation, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

The Secretary of the Interior may do all things and make all expenditures necessary to secure the safe title in the United States to the areas which may be acquired under this subchapter, but no payment shall be made for any such areas until the title thereto shall be satisfactory to the Attorney General or his designee, but the acquisition of such areas by the United States shall in no case be defeated because of rights-of-way, easements, and reservations which from their nature will in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior in no manner interfere with the use of the areas so encumbered for the purposes of this subchapter, but such rights-of-way, easements, and reservations retained by the grantor or lessor from whom the United States receives title under this subchapter or any other Act for the acquisition by the Secretary of the Interior of areas for wildlife refuges shall be subject to rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior for the occupation, use, operation, protection, and administration of such areas as inviolate sanctuaries for migratory birds or as refuges for wildlife; and it shall be expressed in the deed or lease that the use, occupation, and operation of such rights-of-way, easements, and reservations shall be subordinate to and subject to such rules and regulations as are set out in such deed or lease or, if deemed necessary by the Secretary of the Interior, to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by him from time to time.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

1970—Pub. L. 91–393 inserted “or his designee” after “Attorney General”. 1935—Act June 15, 1935, inserted “under said sections or any other Act for the acquisition by the Secretary of Agriculture of areas for wildlife refuges” and “or as refuges for wildlife”, and inserted clause beginning “as are set out in such deed or lease or, if deemed necessary” etc.

Executive Documents

Transfer of Functions

of Secretary of Agriculture to Secretary of the Interior by Reorg. Plan No. II of 1939, see

Transfer of Functions

note set out under section 715a of this title.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

16 U.S.C. § 715e

Title 16, Conservation

Last Updated

Aug 21, 2026

Release point: 119-102