42 U.S.C. § 4655
Section 4655 · Requirements for uniform land acquisition policies; payments of expenses incidental to transfer of real property to State; payment of litigation expenses in certain cases
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 39 court decisions — leading case Commissioner of Transportation v. Rocky Mountain, LLC (2006)
Most recently applied in State ex rel. New Wen, Inc. v. Marchbanks (Slip Opinion) (October 2020)
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.
(a) Notwithstanding any other law, the head of a Federal agency shall not approve any program or project or any grant to, or contract or agreement with, an acquiring agency under which Federal financial assistance will be available to pay all or part of the cost of any program or project which will result in the acquisition of real property on and after January 2, 1971, unless he receives satisfactory assurances from such acquiring agency that—
(1) in acquiring real property it will be guided, to the greatest extent practicable under State law, by the land acquisition policies in section 4651 of this title and the provisions of section 4652 of this title, and
(2) property owners will be paid or reimbursed for necessary expenses as specified in sections 4653 and 4654 of this title.
(b) For purposes of this section, the term “acquiring agency” means—
(1) a State agency (as defined in section 4601(3) of this title) which has the authority to acquire property by eminent domain under State law, and
(2) a State agency or person which does not have such authority, to the extent provided by the head of the lead agency by regulation.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1987—Pub. L. 100–17 designated existing provisions as subsec. (a), substituted “an acquiring agency” for “a State agency” and “such acquiring agency” for “such State agency”, and added subsec. (b).
Effective Date of 1987 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 100–17 effective on effective date provided in regulations promulgated under section 4633 of this title (as amended by section 412 of Pub. L. 100–17), but not later than 2 years after Apr. 2, 1987, see section 418 of Pub. L. 100–17, set out as a note under section 4601 of this title.