30 U.S.C. § 3
Section 3 · Duties of United States Bureau of Mines
Amended 5 times on record
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Moran v. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co. (1950)
Most recently applied in Street v. Consolidation Coal Company (September 1986)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
It shall be the province and duty of the United States Bureau of Mines, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to conduct inquiries and scientific and technologic investigations concerning mining, and the preparation, treatment, and utilization of mineral substances with a view to improving health conditions, and increasing safety, efficiency, economic development, and conserving resources through the prevention of waste in the mining, quarrying, metallurgical, and other mineral industries; to inquire into the economic conditions affecting these industries; to investigate explosives and peat; and on behalf of the Government to investigate the mineral fuels and unfinished mineral products belonging to, or for the use of, the United States, with a view to their most efficient mining, preparation, treatment, and use; and to disseminate information concerning these subjects in such manner as will best carry out the purposes of the provisions of sections 1, 3, and 5 to 7 of this title.