16 U.S.C. § 410mm–1 — Administration

(a) Laws governing; conservation and protection of resources — The Secretary manages the park under this subchapter and under the laws generally applicable to National Park System units, including the Act of August 26, 1916 (39 Stat. 535; 16 U.S.C. 1-4). The Secretary must protect, manage, and administer the park so as to conserve the scenery and the natural, geologic, historic, and archaeological resources — including fish and wildlife — while still letting the public use and enjoy the park, all in a way that keeps these qualities intact for future generations.

(b) Fishing — The Secretary must allow fishing on the park's lands and waters, following applicable United States and Nevada law. The Secretary may still mark off zones, or set time periods, with no fishing allowed, but only for reasons of public safety. Except in an emergency, any rule restricting fishing this way can only take effect after the Secretary consults the appropriate Nevada state agency.

(c) Preparation of management plan; submission to Congress; amendment of plan — After giving notice and a chance for a public hearing, the Secretary must write a management plan for the park. This plan goes to the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, within three years after October 27, 1986. The plan can be amended later. It must, at minimum, cover grazing within the park (to the extent subsection (e) allows it) and the proper management of fish, wildlife, and fishing under subsection (b). These provisions can only be adopted after consulting the state agency in charge of fish and wildlife.

(d) Withdrawal of lands from mining and mineral leasing — Except for any valid rights that already exist, federal land and interests within the park are off-limits to the public land laws, to mining claims, to mineral leasing laws, and to the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970.

(e) Grazing — Subject to whatever limits, conditions, or rules the Secretary sets, the Secretary may allow grazing within the park — but only to the same extent grazing was allowed there as of July 1, 1985. The National Park Service administers this grazing.

(f) Exchange of park grazing allotment for grazing allotment outside park
(1) Exchanges — At any time, either the grazing permit holder or the Secretary can start negotiations to trade all or part of a grazing allotment inside the park for one outside the park. But if the affected federal land management agency believes the trade would cause overgrazing of federal land, the trade cannot happen.
(2)(A) The Secretary may also accept donations of existing, valid grazing permits and leases on park land. (B) Once the Secretary acquires a permit or lease this way, the Secretary must end it, so the grazing it used to allow stops.

(g) Water-related range improvements — Improvements already built for grazing purposes that involve water — like fences, wells, or troughs — may keep being maintained inside the park, either by the Secretary or by the people who benefit from them, but only under reasonable rules the Secretary sets.

(h) Reservation to United States of new express or implied water or water-related right not established; exception — This subchapter does not create any new federal water right — express or implied — for the land described in section 410mm of this title. The United States is only entitled to whatever water right was already tied to when Humboldt National Forest and the Lehman Caves National Monument were originally set aside from the public domain. Nothing in this subchapter lets anyone claim new water rights except by following Nevada's own substantive and procedural water law.

(i) Cooperative agreements with Federal and other agencies; interpretation of Great Basin physiographic region — To help present a unified, cost-effective picture of the wider Great Basin region, the Secretary is authorized — and encouraged — to make cooperative agreements with other federal, state, and local agencies for interpreting that region. These agreements can, among other things, let the Secretary build and run interpretive facilities and programs on land outside the park's own boundaries, as long as whoever owns or manages that outside land agrees.