here which would eliminate a great deal of litigation which might otherwise ensue if that line were merely described in words.

Mr. CELLER. I hate to say this, Mr. Attorney General, because I have an affectionate regard for you and very high opinion of your abilities, but I think it is very naive to say that line could be drawn by Congress. I think we would be arming ourselves with a sea of troubles if we attempted anything like that. As Mr. Wilson, the gentleman from Texas, says, it would take until kingdom come until you could satisfy the various contending interests as to where that line should be drawn.

Now, for example, the State of Texas through its Mr. Giles, testified here to the effect that in 1947, May 25, the State of Texas, through its legislature, said as follows:

The Gulfward boundary lines of all the counties of this State bordering on the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico are hereby fixed and declared to be the Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico.

There you have one State which says it controls and owns the lands and treasures thereunder clear to the Continental Shelf. If you want to satisfy Texas, it would be a simple matter to draw a line around the Continental Shelf. That might not satisfy other interests. Then you would have a devil's own time trying to reconcile those contending interests. How could we in Congress draw such a line? I fear we are buying a kettle of fish.

Attorney General BROWNELL. I must admit that you have to have the will to do it in order to do it.

Mr. CELLER. Not the will only, but you must have the wisdom of a Solomon to do it. I cannot conceive how we could have all that wisdom and patience.

Attorney General BROWNELL. I would not make a concession of that kind, Congressman.

Mr. CELLER. As I understand it, the Court held-and those Latin words are very significant-that the Federal Government does not have dominium, which means ownership or title; it has imperium, that is external sovereignty. Now, if the Federal Government does not have ownership, it therefore cannot transfer that which is part and parcel of ownership. Ownership as I understand it from my lawschool days and my knowledge of the law is the qualities of possession of the land, the use of the land, the right of the disposal of the land, the right of enjoyment to the land. If you have not got title, you have not got any of those attributes. If you have not got any of those attributes, you have not got the right of use, which is part and parcel of the fundamental right of ownership, so how can you dispose of it? How could the Federal Government therefore give it to the States?

Attorney General BROWNELL. Our thought on that, Congressman, is, as expressed a little earlier-I do not know any better way to express it, you have said it in effect-that ownership involves a bundle of rights and when you have ownership and sovereignty put together, it is a bigger bundle. The Supreme Court has used a particular phrase for saying what share of that bundle belongs to the Federal Government. It says they had the paramount rights. As we see it, the job the Congress has before it in connection with this legislation is to see whether it is possible for the States to have those rights which

are necessary for the exploitation and development of these submerged lands, and to receive the potential income from them. If this legislation provides that the States definitely have those rights, does that infringe from a constitutional standpoint on the paramount rights which the Federal Government has? All we are saying to you this afternoon, sir, is that we think it does not infringe upon those paramount rights.

Mr. CELLER. The Supreme Court says it does because I read that in response to the inquiry from the gentleman from Ohio. I will read it again:

And so although dominium and imperium are normally separable and separate, this is an instance where property interests are so subordinated to the rights of sovereignty as to follow sovereignty.

That is pretty clear. The Supreme Court is not going to eat those words when a case comes up after we pass legislation of the type you have suggested. They are going to be consistent with that phraseology, and I am thinking that while what we would have would appear to be a victory, they would throw it out.

Now, one more point. We have had bills offered in both Houses, to the effect that the treasures, the mineral deposits, oils, as in the case of Wyoming, that lie under the national forests, the national parks, and the public domain of such States as Wyoming, Nevada, and Idaho, shall belong to the States. Do you agree with that?

Attorney General BROWNELL. I think it would be more helpful to the committee if I confine my testimony this afternoon to the bills relating to these offshore submerged lands, and merely add this statement, which perhaps will entirely cover your question, we think there is a very real and definite distinction between the problems involved in the offshore property and the public lands inland. There is an entirely different history. The inland properties have no questions of international law tied up with them.

Mr. CELLER. There is oil in Wyoming under the national forest. Attorney General BROWNELL. They may both have oil underneath them. There is no doubt about that. But the differences are much greater than the similarities, and therefore, to bring the oil properties in Wyoming and so forth into this discussion is not very fruitful. Mr. CELLER. I do not bring it in.

Attorney General BROWNELL. I misunderstood you.

Mr. CELLER. I say the campaign has started already and is going to get hotter and hotter as the future comes on us to the effect that since the States are on the coast and since these States claim their boundaries go seaward and therefore they are entitled to everything within their boundaries under water and above water, these inland States will say if Texas and California can make that claim, why can we not make the claim that this oil is within our boundaries and therefore we are entitled to it. That is what these bills are saying that have already been offered. You do not agree with that?

Attorney General BROWNELL. No, I do not think that this bill would be any precedent for them at all.

Mr. CELLER. I take it that you feel that we should not quitclaim or should not attempt to quitclaim by bills by Congress title or ownership to these lands to the States. We should not take that avenue, as

it were.

We should not quitclaim.

Attorney General BROWNELL. We believe that would be constitutional, but we believe our job over at the Department of Justice is as far as possible to foresee legal problems that may arise in connection with legislation. We practice preventive law, in other words. We believe we can prevent some litigation here and save the Government the cost of the litigation by taking this other route.

Mr. CELLER. Did you say that it was constitutional or there is some doubt about it?

Attorney General BROWNELL. We believe that the blanket quitclaim legislation would be constitutional.

Mr. CELLER. Despite the decisions of the Court?

Attorney General BROWNELL. Naturally.

Mr. CELLER. Which has the last word, the Attorney General's office or the Supreme Court?

Attorney General BROWNELL. The Supreme Court.

Mr. GRAHAM. You are not going to press it?

Mr. CELLER. So I wonder whether or not the Supreme Court would adhere to its view or its own view?

Attorney General BROWNELL. Would it not be a better way to say whether it would adhere to my view or your view, and we are both trying to interpret the same opinion.

Mr. CELLER. My view, I think, is the Supreme Court's view. You would also agree that the Congress could not chip away or alienate or transfer any of the sovereignty of the Nation. You agree with that, do you not?

Attorney General BROWNELL. Yes.

Mr. CELLER. That would be utterly unconstitutional?

Attorney General BROWNELL. I do not think any Congress would endeavor to do that.

Mr. CELLER. I do not know. There are some in Congress who may want to do that in effect. They do not realize what they are doing. But that in effect is what they would be doing.

Now, I sympathize completely with what you are trying and striving to do. In other words, I take it that the reason you do not want to have the rights of the Federal Government impaired as far as the Continental Shelf is concerned is because if we pass legislation concerning the Continental Shelf and give portions of that Continental Shelf and the treasure under it to the States, we would be alienating and transferring and quitclaiming a portion of the sovereignty of the United States, is that not correct? That is what you are trying to drive at?

Attorney General BROWNELL. No, I could not go along with that statement.

Mr. CELLER. Why do you put it the way you do? Why do you eliminate the Continental Shelf?

Attorney General BROWNELL. You are speaking now of that portion outside the historic State boundaries.

Mr. CELLER. Yes.

Attorney General BROWNELL. We believe in the policy that has been laid down here by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Navy with respect to that. That is not a legal matter primarily. It is a policy matter. We happen to believe that it is the right policy, that the exclusive jurisdiction over the part of the Continental Shelf

outside the historic State boundaries should be in the Federal Government, and that it should have the power to administer it and to retain the income therefrom. That is a sensible policy for this country to adopt.

Mr. CELLER. Is it sensible to have it administered by the Government because it refers to our external security, our international relations and our foreign affairs and general welfare? Is that not correct? Attorney General BROWNELL. I would not adopt that particular way of saying it, but there is no doubt there is some particular relationship there.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Brownell, before we close-I think everyone has exhausted themselves, and probably you, too-we want to thank you very much for your courtesy in coming before us and appreciate deeply what you have contributed. I am speaking on behalf of the committee when I say that we would appreciate any suggestions you have in drafting this legislation.

Now, if there is no further work for him to do, we will excuse him, and begin with the Congressmen.

Attorney General BROWNELL. Thank you very much for your courtesy, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GRAHAM. We will now hear from Mr. Yorty. Mr. Yorty is in support of H. R. 2478. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. SAMUEL W. YORTY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. YoRTY. Mr. Chairman, H. R. 2478 is practically the same as the Walter bill, and the Wilson bill, except for one provision, section 11, which was the main reason I introduced the bill. That section simply provides that the Secretary of the Interior have permissive authority to contract with the proper State agencies to do the leasing and the exchange of leases, and the other administrative acts, that he will have authority to do, the State, then, acting as the agent of the Federal Government to carry out the wishes of the Federal Government.

I thought in that connection if you had 1 agency handling the entire area instead of having 2 agencies with a straight line drawn between their areas, sometimes perhaps right over an oil structure, that it would be a little easier to administer the area.

I took this up with the Secretary of the Interior and as the chairman and members of the committee know, he told me that he had no objection to it. Therefore, since he speaks for the administration, I would say that so long as we adopt the provision as I drafted it, a merely permissive power, I would think that it would cause no objection to the bill.

There are just 1 or 2 thoughts that I would like to leave with the committee. I appreciate what the Attorney General is trying to do in getting around the constitutional question that he foresees. Having studied this problem and the legislation pretty thoroughly, it is my opinion that he would not get around the constitutional question. He would merely bring it up in a different form. I would go along with the sentiment expressed by the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Wilson, that we should go ahead and affirm the States' title releasing any

claims the Federal Government has in a proprietary way to these lands beneath the navigable waters within the historical boundaries of the States.

I am in agreement with the gentleman from New York, Mr. Celler, that the word ownership was stricken out of the decree, and whether or not the Federal Government has ownership is unimportant, so long as it releases whatever rights it has in a proprietary capacity and makes it clear that such rights shall be vested in the State insofar as the Federal Government is concerned.

Now, in that connection, I just wanted to make one point here, and that is that if you merely granted the right to the States to develop, say, the oil resources in the area, you might leave up in the air this question of the filled lands. The previous Attorney General-rather the Solicitor-made many statements in public to the effect that filled lands were not affected by the California decision and the Texas and Louisiana decisions. I just want to read a paragraph here from the brief filed by the Federal Government in the California case, in which they dealt with these filled lands. I am reading from page 100 of their brief before the special master. The title of this paragraph is "The Effect of Artificial Changes." [Reading:]

It is the position of the United States that artificial changes through such harbor development as breakwaters, although they may make waters useful for anchoring ships by protecting an area from the sea, do not result in vesting title to submerged lands in California unless they existed at the time California entered the Union. This position is based upon the accepted rule of law that artificial changes in the shore, either in the nature of reclaiming land or constructing barriers which enclose water areas, do not change the title to the land affected by the improvements.

I think it is fairly obvious that they are stating quite a sound position of law, in accord with the old common law rules of land titles, that by artificial fills you could not change the title. Therefore, as far as Florida, as well as some of the other States are concerned, they are exactly right when they say that the title to all these filled lands on which many apartment houses and hotels and other structures are built are clouded by the assertions of the Federal Government in this case, and need to be cleared up by something more than giving the States merely the right to develop the resources in the submerged lands.

The other point which the committee showed considerable interest in was the boundary question. I might call the attention of the committee to the fact that in the California case they still have not been able to determine the exact location of the seaward boundary of the inland waters. It is in that case, of course, that the Federal Government is trying to push this boundary very close into the shore by claiming that some of our bays are not actually bays. Although they admit they are geographically recognized as bays, they deny that they are legally bays. They are relying upon alleged rules of international law which they have been forced to admit are not settled rules of international law. In this connection they claim that the Federal State Department is the agency that must make the assertions as to seaward boundaries on behalf of the United States, and, therefore, they put the defendant State in the position of opposing a plaintiff able to rely for establishing the position of the plaintiff on their own self-serving declarations. In other words, they claim in court the exclusive power