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.
[2] The effort was initially opposed by the Department of the Interior, in testimony by Assistant Secretary John A.
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] 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.