U.S. Geological Survey USGS

Congress created the U.S. Geological Survey on March 3, 1879, to classify the public lands and examine the geology and mineral resources of the nation, consolidating several rival western surveys. Its first director was Clarence King, and its second, John Wesley Powell, had led the first government expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The survey has no regulatory power. It is a science agency whose data other agencies, states, and businesses rely on.

Its topographic maps defined how Americans saw their country for more than a century, and its National Map continues that work digitally. It operates thousands of stream gauges that feed flood forecasts and water allocation decisions, monitors earthquakes and volcanoes and issues warnings, and assesses the nation's mineral, oil, and gas resources, including the official list of critical minerals. It also operates the Landsat satellites, built with NASA, whose imagery record of the Earth's surface runs back to 1972.

Because its work underpins hazard warnings, water management, and resource development, USGS funding draws support from both parties in principle but is regularly squeezed in practice. Its critical minerals assessments gained prominence as supply chains for batteries and defense technology became a national security concern, and an expanded list was proposed in 2025. The administration's 2026 budget request proposed deep cuts, including to its ecosystems research, which supporters described as refocusing on core missions and critics said would weaken environmental science.