To enable the Secretary of the Interior to preserve the extraordinary natural qualities of Yosemite National Park, notwithstanding its increasing use by the public, the Secretary is hereby authorized to provide in the manner hereinafter set forth an administrative site in the El Portal area adjacent to Yosemite National Park, in order that utilities, facilities, and services required in the operation and administration of Yosemite National Park may be located on such site outside the park.

For said site the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to acquire by purchase or donation, or with donated funds, approximately twelve hundred acres, as shown on map numbered NP–YOS–7011, of non-Federal land, interests in land, and appurtenances thereto, and, to avoid severing parcels in private ownership which extend beyond the area so depicted, the Secretary of the Interior may acquire in their entirety such parcels of land or interests therein.

The Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior are authorized to arrange and effect mutually satisfactory transfers of jurisdiction over land administered by each in the El Portal area. Land so transferred to the Secretary of the Interior shall thereupon be excluded from the national forest or forests involved and thereafter be administered by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to this section as a part of said administrative site. Land transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture pursuant to this section shall thereupon become national forest land subject to all laws, rules, and regulations applicable to land acquired pursuant to the Week’s law.

Nothing herein contained shall affect any valid claim, location, or entry existing under the land laws of the United States, or the rights of any such claimant, locator, or entryman to the full use and enjoyment of his land.

Until further action by the Congress, the lands acquired by or transferred to the Secretary of the Interior hereunder shall not become a part of Yosemite National Park, nor be subject to the laws and regulations governing said park, but the Secretary of the Interior shall have supervision, management, and control of the area and shall make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary and proper for its use and management: Provided, That he may grant nonexclusive privileges, leases, and permits for the use of land in the area and enter into contracts relating to the same, subject to the limitations and conditions applying to the similar authority provided in section 3 of the Act of August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535), as amended (45 Stat. 235, 16 U.S.C., 1952 edition, sec. 3).[1]

Funds now or hereafter appropriated or otherwise available for operating and capital programs in the areas administered by the National Park Service, including funds for acquisition of land and interests in land, are made available to acquire land, interests in land, and appurtenances thereto, within the administrative site, and to further the purpose of this section.

(Pub. L. 85–922, §§ 1–6, Sept. 2, 1958, 72 Stat. 1772.)