U.S. Department of the Interior history

1850: The first federal railroad land grant is for a line from Chicago, Illinois to Mobile, Alabama.10

The Republican Party adopts homesteading in its 1860 election platform, and passage is made possible by the secession of Southern states from the union.

1862: The Morrill Act provides grants of federal land to the states.

1869 Interior began its geological survey of the western Territories with the Hayden expedition.

1871: Congress creates the United States Fish Commission to study the stocks of commercial fish in the nation's lakes and on the ocean coasts.

1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.

14 Edward Winslow Martin, "A Complete and Graphic Account of the Crédit Mobilier Investigation," Continental Publishing Company and National Publishing Company, 1873, http://cprr.org/Museum/Credit_Mobilier_1873.html.

1875: Interior Secretary, Columbus Delano, resigns from office in the face of various corruption scandals.

1879: The United States Geological Survey is created within Interior to research and map the nation's lands, thus consolidating activities that had taken place within both Interior and the War Department.

The Indian Reorganization Act abolishes the allotment system established in 1887, forms tribal governments, and affirms the Secretary's trust responsibilities.

1891: The Forest Reserve Act allows presidents to set aside protected forest areas on federal lands.

1902 The Bureau of Reclamation is established to construct dams and aqueducts in the west.

1903 President Theodore Roosevelt establishes the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island, Florida.

1910 The Bureau of Mines is created to promote mine safety and minerals technology.

1920 The Mineral Leasing Act establishes the government's right to rental payments and royalties on oil, gas, and minerals production.

1922: News of the Teapot Dome bribery scandal breaks.

1925 The Patent Office is transferred to the Department of Commerce.

1930: The blue ribbon Garfield Commission supports President Herbert Hoover's call to transfer ownership of millions of acres of western lands to the states.

1935 The Bureau of Reclamation completes construction of Hoover Dam.

In April 1937 Ickes issued Secretarial Order No.

The Office of Education was part of the Department of the Interior until 1939, when it became part of the Federal Security Agency.

1940 The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is created from the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey.

1946 Interior's General Land Office and Grazing Service are merged into the Bureau of Land Management.

Finally, in December 1948, the Library of the Office of Education was moved out of the Interior Building.

The newly reestablished Department of the Interior Library was able to collect over 450 thousand volumes in 1949 from all of the bureaus and agencies listed above, and established itself as the Interior Department's primary resource for information in subject matters related to the Department.

1968: Congress authorizes the massive Central Arizona Project to channel water with huge pumps and aqueducts from the Colorado River to Phoenix, Tucson, and surrounding areas.

1971: President Richard Nixon signs the Alaska Natives Claims Settlement Act, giving 44 million acres and $962 million to local native groups and 13 larger native corporations in Alaska.33

1973: Congress passes the Endangered Species Act, which expands federal power over private lands.

1976: The Bureau of Reclamation's Teton Dam in Idaho collapses a year after it was built.

1977 The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act is established to oversee state regulation of strip coal mining and repair of environmental damage.

It would later join the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare before becoming its own cabinet agency, the Department of Education, in 1979.

1980 The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act is enacted adding 47 million acres to the National Park System and 54 acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System.

1982 The Minerals Management Service (now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement) is established to facilitate mineral revenue collection and manage the Outer Continental Shelf offshore lands.

9 James Muhn and Hanson R. Stuart, Opportunity and Challenge: The Story of BLM (Washington: Department of the Interior, September 1988), Chapter 1, www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/blm/history.

8 Richard W. Wahl, Markets for Federal Water: Subsidies, Property Rights and the Bureau of Reclamation (Washington: Resources for the Future, 1989), Table 1.2.

1 (Winter 1992). And see Jonathan H. Adler, "Anti-Conservation Incentives," Regulation 30, no.

1993 The President convened the Northwest Forest Plan Summit and released the "Forest Plan for a Sustainable Economy and Sustainable Environment."

20 For a discussion of shortcomings in federal land management, see Robert H. Nelson, Public Lands and Private Rights (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995).

Our origins span about 30 years culminating in the 1999 merger of Bureau of Reclamation's Denver Administrative Service Center, United States Geological Survey's Washington Administrative Service Center and the Office of the Secretary's Interior Service Center.

In 2001, the President's Management Agenda established cross-servicing as an important and lasting movement in the management of federal agencies.

In response to the PMA's initiatives, in 2005, the Office of Management and Budget began the establishment of Lines of Business and Centers of Excellence to replace costly redundant individual service provisions within multiple federal agencies.

And see Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General, "Investigative Report of Gregory W. Smith," August 7, 2008.

2010 Secretary Ken Salazar signs order 3302, renaming the Minerals Management Service as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement.

It has gross budget outlays of $20.5 billion and net outlays after offsetting receipts of about $13 billion in fiscal 2011.56