
From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
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[Laws in effect as of January 2, 2001]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
  January 2, 2001 and January 28, 2002]
[CITE: 16USC32]

 
                         TITLE 16--CONSERVATION
 
   CHAPTER 1--NATIONAL PARKS, MILITARY PARKS, MONUMENTS, AND SEASHORES
 
                 SUBCHAPTER V--YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
 
Sec. 32. Lease of lands within park

    The Secretary of the Interior is authorized and empowered to lease 
for a period not exceeding twenty years, at an annual rental to be 
determined by him, to any person, corporation, or company he may 
authorize to transact business in the Yellowstone National Park, 
separate tracts of land, not exceeding twenty acres each, at such places 
not to exceed ten in number to any one person, corporation, or company, 
in said park as the comfort and convenience of visitors may require for 
the construction and maintenance of substantial hotel buildings and 
buildings for the protection of stage, stock, and equipment.
    Such lease or leases shall not include any of the geysers or any 
objects of curiosity or interest in said park, or exclude the public 
from free and convenient approach thereto, or include any ground within 
one-eighth of a mile of any of the geysers of the Yellowstone Falls, the 
Grand Canyon, or the Yellowstone River, Mammoth Hot Springs, or any 
object of curiosity in the park; nor shall such lease convey either 
expressly or by implication any exclusive privilege within the park, 
except on the premises held thereunder and for the time therein granted. 
Every lease made for any property of said park shall require the lessee 
to observe and obey each and every provision in any Act of Congress, 
every rule, order, or regulation made or which shall hereafter be made 
and published by the Secretary of the Interior concerning the use, care, 
management, or government of the park, or any object or property therein 
under penalty of forfeiture of such lease, and shall be subject to the 
right of revocation and forfeiture, which shall therein be reserved by 
the Secretary of the Interior.
    The provisions of this section are not to be construed as mandatory 
upon the Secretary of the Interior, but the authority herein given is to 
be exercised in his sound discretion.

(Aug. 3, 1894, ch. 198, 28 Stat. 222; June 4, 1906, ch. 2570, 34 Stat. 
207; Mar. 2, 1907, ch. 2518, 34 Stat. 1219.)

                          Codification

    The first paragraph of this section is from act June 4, 1906, as 
amended by act Mar. 2, 1907, which changed the authorized term of 
leasing from ten years to twenty years as set out above. It superseded 
earlier provisions covering similar matter contained in the first 
sentence of act Aug. 3, 1894.
    The second paragraph of the section is from act Aug. 3, 1894, which 
contained a further proviso that ``persons or corporations now holding 
leases of ground in the park may, upon the surrender thereof, be granted 
new leases hereunder, and upon the terms and stipulations contained in 
their present leases, with such modifications, restrictions, and 
reservations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe'' which has 
been omitted as temporary and executed.
    A further provision that ``so much of that portion of the act of 
March third, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, relating to the 
Yellowstone Park as conflict with the act, be and the same is hereby, 
repealed'' and the portion of the act March 3, 1883, referred to in such 
provision, have been omitted from the Code, the last named portion 
having been superseded by the Acts cited to text.

                  Section Referred to in Other Sections

    This section is referred to in section 33 of this title.
