William W. Lyons papers, 1950-1978

The William W. Lyons papers document Lyons’s career in the U.S. Department of the Interior as Deputy Under Secretary. Subject files contain primarily correspondence on coal leases, mining plans, and environmental impact statements as well as federal regulations concerning the same. There is information on proposed coal mining and railroad development on federal land in the eastern Powder River Coal Basin of Wyoming; the Pacific Northwest’s short and long term power supply problems; and the controversy caused when the Federal Power Commission permitted an increase in rates charged by Pacific Gas and Electric Company for transmission service to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Also included are weekly status reports on the building of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Chronological files contain copies of all out-going correspondence, memorandums, and notes sent by Lyons monthly.

Several legal cases requiring depositions and/or affidavits by Lyons during his tenure in the Department of the Interior are documented. Chevron Oil Company filed suit against Interior Secretary Hathaway in 1975 concerning the sale of oil and gas leases on Texas’s Outer Continental Shelf. In 1976, the Crow Tribe of Indians filed suit against the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs seeking to declare invalid certain prospecting permits and mining leases approved on Crow coal land on and near the Crow Reservation. Other cases include the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) v. Curtis J. Berklund, NRDC v. Hughes, Sierra Club v. Morton, and State of Florida v. Morton.