Title 43, Public LandsRelease 119-102
§2 Duties Concerning Public Lands
Title 43 › CHAPTER 1 — BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT › § 2
Summary
The Secretary of the Interior, or an officer the Secretary picks, must carry out all executive tasks about surveying and selling the United States' public lands and any other work involving those lands. They also must handle private land claims and issue official ownership documents (patents) for land grants made by the government.
Full Legal Text
Title 43, §2
Public Lands, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
The Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate shall perform all executive duties appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands of the United States, or in anywise respecting such public lands, and, also, such as relate to private claims of land, and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the Government.
Legislative History
Notes & Related Subsidiaries
Editorial Notes
Codification R.S. § 453 derived from acts Apr. 25, 1812, ch. 68, § 1, 2 Stat. 716;
July 4, 1836, ch. 352, § 1, 5 Stat. 107;
June 6, 1874, ch. 223, 18 Stat. 62; Feb. 18, 1875, ch. 80, § 1, 18 Stat. 317.
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Bureau of Land Management Drug
Enforcement
Supplemental Authority Pub. L. 99–570, title V, subtitle C, as added by Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, § 6254(d)(3), Nov. 18, 1988, 102 Stat. 4365, provided that: “SEC. 5061.
Short Title
.“This subtitle may be cited as the ‘Bureau of Land Management Drug
Enforcement
Supplemental Authority Act’. “SEC. 5062. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT AUTHORIZATION.“In order to improve Federal law
Enforcement
activities relating to the use and production of narcotics and controlled substances on Bureau of Land Management public lands, from amounts appropriated there are made available to the Secretary of the Interior, in addition to sums made available under other authority of law, $1,500,000 for fiscal year 1989, and for each fiscal year thereafter, to be used for the employment and training of additional and existing personnel, for equipment and facilities to be used by such personnel, and for expenses related to such employment, training, equipment, and facilities.”
Executive Documents
Transfer of Functions
For
Transfer of Functions
of other officers, employees, and agencies of Department of the Interior, with certain exceptions, to Secretary of the Interior, with power to delegate, see Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1950, §§ 1, 2, eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3174, 64 Stat. 1262, set out under section 1451 of this title. “The Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate shall perform” substituted for “The Commissioner of the General Land Office shall perform, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior,” on authority of section 403 of Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1946. See note set out under section 1 of this title.
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
43 U.S.C. § 2
Title 43, Public Lands
Last Updated
Aug 21, 2026
Release point: 119-102