30 U.S.C. § 21
Section 21 · Mineral lands reserved
Applied in 59 court decisions — leading case Best v. Humboldt Placer Mining Co. (1963)
Most recently applied in Earthworks v. DOI (June 2024)
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.
In all cases lands valuable for minerals shall be reserved from sale, except as otherwise expressly directed by law.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. § 2318 derived from act July 4, 1866, ch. 166, § 5, 14 Stat. 86.