Interior Board of Land Appeals

The Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) is an appellate review body that exercises the delegated authority of the United States secretary of the interior to issue final decisions for the United States Department of the Interior.[1]

Interior Board of Land Appeals
Agency overview
Agency executive
  • Silvia Riechel Idziorek, Chief Administrative Judge
Parent departmentUnited States Department of the Interior
WebsiteIBLA

History

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The IBLA was proposed in February 1963 in a bill introduced by Senator Ernest Gruening and supported by 12 additional members of the United States Senate representing western states. The bill proposed to establish a three-member board empowered to hold hearings and decide appeals from decisions of the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Geological Survey. In introducing the bill, Gruening asserted the need to remedy the absence of a statutory right for landowners.[2] The effort was initially opposed by the Department of the Interior, in testimony by Assistant Secretary John A. Carver Jr. before the Senate public lands subcommittee in May 1963. Carver acknowledged the need for a mechanism for landowners to appeal determinations, but stated that the department could develop an internal process for that purpose.[3] Although this effort failed, it spurred Congress to create the Public Land Law Review Commission, which also criticized the appellate process available to landowners, culminating in the 1970 decision of the Department of the Interior to create the Office of Hearings and Appeals, with the IBLA as a component of that office.[4]

Structure and functions

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Its administrative judges decide appeals from bureau decisions relating to the use and disposition of public lands and their resources, mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf, and the conduct of surface coal mining operations under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. Located within the Department's Office of Hearings and Appeals, IBLA is separate and independent from the bureaus and offices whose decisions it reviews.[5]

IBLA is headed by a chief administrative judge. IBLA's decisions are final for the department and may be reviewed by the United States district courts.[5][6]

Overview

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IBLA has the authority to consider the following types of cases:[5]

Decisions of the IBLA may be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over the circuit in which the lands are located.[1]: 1 

References

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  1. ^ a b United States Congress Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Subcommittee on Public Lands (1963). Public Land Review: Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Eighty-Eighth Congress, First Session, on May 6-7, Aug. 6, 1963. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  2. ^ "Board Proposed On Land Appeals", Arizona Daily Star (February 13, 1963), p. 6.
  3. ^ "Western Solons Meet Roadblock In Effort To Change Land Policy", The Roseburg News-Review (May 6, 1963), p. 2.
  4. ^ David L. Hughes, Practice and Procedure before the Interior Board of Land Appeals 14 Pub. Land L. Rev. 113 (June 1993), p. 115-116.
  5. ^ a b c "About the Interior Board of Land Appeals". United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved July 15, 2021.   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  6. ^ "Interior Board of Land Appeals | Open Energy Information". openei.org. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
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