16 U.S.C. § 273d — Administration, protection, and development

(a) Authority of Secretary: The National Park Service, working under the direction of the Secretary, must administer, protect, and develop the park. It must follow the 1916 Act that created the National Park Service, as that Act has since been amended and added to. (b) Easements and rights-of-way: The Secretary must grant easements and rights-of-way — permission for things like roads or pipelines to cross the park — on a nondiscriminatory basis, treating similar requests the same way. The one exception is if the Secretary finds that a particular easement or right-of-way would have significant adverse effects on how the park is run; then the Secretary can refuse it. (c) Report by Secretary: Within three years of December 18, 1971, the Secretary of the Interior had to report to the President. That report had to follow the process set out in the Wilderness Act, and had to recommend which areas of the park, if any, are suitable to be preserved as wilderness. Any area actually designated as wilderness had to be designated according to the Wilderness Act's rules.