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B-216218 1 (1984-11-30)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabknb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON D.C. 20548 B-216218 November 30, 1984 The Honorable John D. Dingell Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce House of Representatives Dear Mr. Chairman: Your letter of August 7, 1984, requested our analysis of the legal authority for issuing and enforcing regulations requiring universal seat belt use by motorists traveling on federally-managed lands, particularly lands controlled by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Park Service. For the reasons indicated below, it is our opinion that such regulations are generally authorized. The basic authority of the Federal Government to control activities on Federal land is contained in the Constitution. Article IV, section 3, clause 2, the Property Clause, confers upon the Congress the authority to make all needful rules respecting the public lands. This grant of authority is generally conceded to be the functional equivalent of the police power exercised by the states. Camfield v. United States, 167 U.S. 518, 525 (1897). The constitutional power includes the authority to control all aspects of the use of public lands, not just the disposi- tion of those lands or rules necessary to protect the lands themselves from damage. In Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976), the Supreme Court upheld the Congress' authority to protect wild burros on public lands. Despite a confl~icting state law which held that free-roaming animals were subject to seizure and auction sale by the state, the Court enforced the wild burro law. It found that the Property Clause and the Supremacy Clause conferred on the Congress basically unlimited power to manage the utilization of public lands and to regulate the behavior of the private parties who gain access to public lands. The Congress has delegated this broad authority, as it applies to the national parks, to the Secretary of the Interior. The relevant statute reads in pertinent part: The Secretary of the Interior shall make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the use and management of the parks, monuments and

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