3. WATERFRONT OWNERSHIP-continued (k) Unincorporated territory (west of Los Angeles city): Public Private, 74,280 feet_____ Estimated value of water frontage listed, total‒‒‒‒‒ In addition to the waterfront land and improvements The location, length, and value of this strip of land and Santa Monica, 2 miles_. Los Angeles City (southeast of Santa Monica), 3.5 miles--- None 12, 805, 000 35, 121, 000 13, 260, 000 7,620,000 7,460, 000 It is apparent from the foregoing that the various projects and expenditures of local public funds therefor can only be made in the State of California and its public grantees are secure in the title of the tidelands and submerged lands in Santa Monica and San Pedro Bays. We can only urge this committee and the Congress to approve and adopt this proopsed bill, Senate Joint Resolution 13, or a similar measure to the end that millions upon millions of dollars invested in improvements upon tide and submerged lands or reclaimed lands not only by the city of Los Angeles, but by States and public bodies throughout the Nation, be made secure to the public investors who have relied in good faith upon the soundness of these titles. The city of Los Angeles and its board of harbor commissioners respectfully endorse the Holland bill and ask that this committee report the same favorably to the Congress for adoption, in order that justice and equity may be done to the States and their grantees. REPORT ON OFFSHORE OIL LANDS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE By J. Ashton Greene & Associates, Economic Consultants, Investment Advisers, New Orleans, La. It occurs to me that the issue to be decided on the question of offshore lands is the role that the Federal Government is to play in the development and/or protection of offshore oil and mineral deposits. It is therefore necessary to postulate the national interest in this vital matter, that is, What is the long range national interest of the United States in these offshore areas? I would like, therefore, to suggest the following plan as a guide or, better still, as an approach to action in solving this issue. First, by congressional action, there should be established an Interstate Tidelands Board. This Board will be composed as follows: Three members chosen by the Governor of Louisiana. Three members chosen by the Governor of Texas. Three members chosen by the Governor of California. One member chosen by the American Petroleum Institute. One member chosen by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. One member chosen by the Secretary of Interior from National Petroleum Council. One member chosen by Secretary of Labor from ranks of labor. One member chosen by Secretary of Navy. One member chosen by President of the United States as personal representative. This Board will be responsible to Congress for the leasing and development of the marginal seas areas and the Continental Shelf areas. This Board will provide that 37 percent of the revenues from the marginal seas areas will go to the tidelands States along whose ocean boundaries the leases and bonuses are made and received. This Board will provide that 15 percent of the revenues accruing from development of the Continental Shelf areas to be given to the affected States. Further, the Navy will get one-eighth of the Continental Shelf as a petroleum reserve. There are many problems involved in the long range solution of this problem. I submit that any proposal to be seriously considered must take into account first the national interest and secondly, the long range solution. I submit that my proposal endeavors to stay within that framework. I would also like to suggest that while my proposal does not solve all the issues involved, it does attempt to take into account basic interests of all the parties concerned. STATEMENT OF FRED S. LEBLANC, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF LOUISIANA Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Fred S. LeBlanc, attorney general of the State of Louisiana, with official domicile and principal office in the city of Baton Rouge, La. I deeply appreciate the privilege of making this appearance and of giving you my views on the submerged lands legislation now pending before you. I would like to point out first of all that the government of Louisiana and the people of that State in their collective sovereign capacity have much at stake in the legislation under present consideration. While we have no right to expect special treatment by the Congress, certain factors of profound concern to our State make it necessary that we not only undertake to defend the sovereign rights of our State in an abstract sense but strive to protect long-asserted claims to valuable property that has been acquired on the basis of proprietary rights in which we felt secure. Louisiana has more miles of navigable rivers and streams and a coastline of greater irreqularity than ony other State in the Union. Natural resources of various kinds and in great quantities have long since been discovered on and under the lands that are submerged in both inland and coastal navigable waters, and our interest, quite obviously, does not lie in mere ambitious speculation but in the realism of actual discovery and effective production of such resources. This success in development followed in the wake of long-scale planning, foresight, ingenuity, and the spending of public funds in vast amounts. Finding a new and abundant source of revenue as a result of such discovery and production, anticipated income was earmarked, appropriated, and dedicated to a material expansion in State services, road building, and hospital construction, and a great percentage thereof was pledged for the retirement of State bonds. The foregoing revelations have not been made for the singular purpose of sounding alarm or of magnifying the ominous character of Louisiana's position. In a letter bearing date of January 30, 1953, addressed to the Governor of our State, Hon. Hugh Butler, the distinguished senior Senator from the State of Nebraska, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, suggested that we present to that committee at its present hearings, information in some detail to show the nature of things of value under production in submerged lands of our State, the number of acres of submerged lands owned or claimed by Louisiana, the disposition of revenue derived from such lands and resources, our leasing experience and legal authority which supports our leasing program. In a supplement to this statement we submit to this committee the same information that we have given to the Senate Commitee on Inerior and Insular Affairs, a the request of Senator Butler. I do not intend to make a long statement to this committee. My attention has been called to the fact that some 14 hearings have been held before congressional committees on sumberged-lands legislation, beginning in 1937, and that the record of such hearings consists of approximately 6,000 pages of testimony. I do not wish to burden this committee with repetitious argument and superfluous evidence of the States' position in the submerged-lands issue. Nor do I intend to take up and analyze each one of the many bills filed in the House on the subject. Rather, my purpose shall be that of emphasizing the principles and objectives underlying such legislation. There are a few basic facts that should be recognized by way of preface, and they are as follows: (1) The legislation under consideration involves a profound question of national policy. (2) That policy not only affects the welfare of the States but the national interest as well. (3) The interests of both the States and the Nation can best be served by the adoption of legislation dealing with the entire submerged-lands problem. (4) Such embracive legislation should be passed as soon as possible. (5) Congress has the authority under article IV, section 3, clause 2, of the Constitution of the United States to take that action. A number of bills have been introduced in the House which contain highly similar, if not identical, language; for example, I refer to the bills filed, respectively, by Mr. Walter of Pennsylvania, Mr. Wilson, of Texas, and Mr. Willis, of Louisiana. We believe that the approach therein made offers the best solution to the submerged-lands problem. First of all and of major concern is the restoration to the States of all the lands and resources thereof underlying inland navigable waters and beneath the marginal sea within their respective historic boundaries. Such recognition, confirmation, and restoration would accomplish a sound public policy, strengthen Federal-State relations, promote fair play in Government, and give effect to the uniform respect and recognition accorded to State ownership by all wellinformed persons, including the officers and agents of the United States, for more than a hundred years prior to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the California, Texas, and Louisiana cases. A national policy of the highest importance is involved, and Congress alone can express it. So, it is no impediment to congressional action that the Supreme Court of the United States has said in three recent decisions that certain States had no title to lands in the marginal sea within their boundaries. Mr. Justice Black, organ of the Court in the Caliiornia case, said in part: "As previously stated, this Court has followed and reasserted the basic doctrine of the Pollard case many times. And in so doing it has used language strong enough to indicate that the Court then believed that States not only owned tidelands but also owned soils under all navigable waters within their territorial jurisdiction, whether inland or not." [Italics supplied.] Mr. Justice Black was manifestly referring to the 8 Chief Justices and the 40 Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court who, in many landmark cases, beginning in 1845 and extending to 1936, believed that the States owned lands under all navigable waters within their boundaries, whether inland or not. To give meaning to a century of uniform jurisprudence and the universal reliance placed upon it, the Congress is urged by those in support of the States position to translate in terms of a sound public policy, those things which so many Justices of the United States Supreme Court believed and said throughout the history of our Nation, down to 1947. The coastal States have not sought to alarm the other States. Those States have given their own interpretation to the decisions in the California, Texas, and Louisiana cases. Witnesses before congressional committees have expressed their own fears and concern. It is patently essential that the States without maritime borders but possessing lands and resources beneath inland navigable water be quieted in their sovereign proprietary rights and no longer fear the engulfing tide of “paramount rights." It is even more necessary, perhaps, that States and their subdivisions be given reassurance, which Congress alone can effectively give, that they are secure in the ownership and enjoyment of ports, harbors, and the manifold and valuable improvements placed on reclaimed lands. Indeed, those provisions in the several bills which undertake to confirm and restore State ownership of lands and resources within the historic boundaries of the States contemplate results much more important and lasting than the mere settlement of a dispute over the title to and control of petroleum in submerged coastal lands. Entirely too much emphasis has been placed on oil in this one phase of submerged-lands legislation which deals with the restoration of the proprietary rights of the States. The Supreme Court of the United States has been urged in three recent cases to name the owner of submerged coastal lands. The Court having failed to so state and decide, Congress should act. Title should be confirmed and restored in the States, and the language of the bill so providing should be strong enough to dispel the slightest conception that "paramount rights" of the Federal Government transcend the proprietary rights of the States to the extent that those rights of the States can be taken at any time without just compensation; moreover, such legislation should once and for all put an end to the implication or inference, such as was made in the decision by the Court in the California case, that the States have only a qualified title to lands beneath inland navigable waters. Our support of legislation dealing with the development of natural resources in the Continental Shelf outside and seaward of the historic maritime boundaries of the States, is based on motives and principles entirely different from those underlying our support of the legislation first hereinabove discussed. We are prone to regard titles I and II of the Walter, Wilson, and Willis bills, respectively, and title III thereof as contemplating different objectives, based upon separate policy considerations; nevertheless, the subjects dealt with are germane and should be incorporated in one piece of legislation. We support title III of the Walter, Wilson, and Willis bills because, in the first place, we simply cannot close our eyes or deafen our ears to the realistic and urgent problem of petroleum development in those areas presently lying beyond but immediately adjoining the historic boundaries of the coastal States in the sea. The need of increasing petroleum supply is great. Statistics will show that demand for oil has recently fallen short of production. Sound conservation practices require reasonable and orderly development and the prevention of drainage and waste. It would certainly not redound to the benefit of our Nation and its people, in our opinion, for oil in place in such areas to remain undisturbed and undeveloped. New and abundant sources of oil supply appear to be the only solution, particularly if, under greater national emergency or war, the demand for petroleum should materially increase. We have never been entirely certain of the meaning, significance, and effect of the term, "appertain," which appeared in the President's proclamation of September 28, 1945; however, that term is given clear and explicit meaning in title III of the bills aforesaid, wherein it is provided that the natural resources of the Continental Shelf lying beyond the historic boundaries of the States in the sea, are subject to the jurisdiction and power of and disposition by the United States. This declaration of policy strengthens the claim to such areas as against all other nations and validates the occupation thereof which began when certain States commenced the leasing of such lands for oil, gas, and mineral development. We must look to international rather than domestic law to determine whether or not the United States may so extend its jurisdiction. Other nations have taken such action for various purposes and it would appear appropriate for the United States to do likewise, if it is to develop resources in areas in which other nations, remotely situated, have taken no interest. It bears of emphasis that legislation on that phase of the subject treats of submerged lands and the resources thereof and does not affect international concepts and customs as to the rights of the several nations to use the waters above for purposes of navigation. It is not our purpose to magnify the Walter, Wilson, and Willis bills to the extent of failing to recognize other House bills of a similar nature which contemplate the restoration of State ownership of submerged lands in inland navigable waters and those in coastal waters within historic State boundaries, as well as the development of the natural resources of the Continental Shelf lying seaward of the historic maritime belts of the States. We are in favor of the principles and objectives of all such bills. We support, as well, such bills as those introduced respectively by Messrs. Hébert and Boggs, of Louisiana; however, we take the position for the reasons above set forth, that an additional title should be added to such bills which would authorize the development of the natural resources of submerged lands in the Continental Shelf lying beyond the historic boundaries of the States in the marginal sea and the extension of State jurisdiction in such areas for the exercise of certain police powers. We do not believe that any phase of the submerged lands problem should be pretermitted by the Congress at this session. If the United States may so extend its jurisdiction, it would seem proper, under our dual-sovereignty system, that the States should be authorized to execute police power and the right of taxation and conservation in such areas. If appropriate delegation of authority can be extended to the States they could well serve as leasing agents, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior. Most coastal States already have leasing boards or commissions and they are staffed with experienced and well-qualified personnel. The States are in a strategic position to do an effective job. Local control would accomplish reasonable development, prevent the indeterminable delays of long-distance supervision, and save the Federal Government the tremendous expense of creating a new agency for the purpose, or of expanding the staff of an existing agency for the same purpose at great cost. 30869-53-19 If the States should serve as leasing agents, their service in such field would justify in itself some appreciable share in the resulting revenue. But there is a greater reason to support financial remuneration to the State. The efforts that the States have made, the public funds that they have expended, the longscale planning that they have engaged in, and the far-reaching programs of promotion that they have executed, all for the purpose of interesting oil and gas operators in developing the maritime areas and, finally, in bringing about discovery and production, bear of tangible recognition and some measure of substantial recompense. We have heretofore said that legislation such as that contained in title III of the Walter, Wilson, Willis, and other like bills has our support for reasons entirely different from those which cause us to favor the confirmation or restoration of State title to submerged coastal lands within historic State boundaries. There is, indeed, a vast difference between the restoration of certain proprietary rights of the States and the creation of legislative authority in which the Federal Government and the several States would cooperate, pool facilities and work together in a major undertaking, the results of which would materially aid our national defense program and inure to the benefit of all the people of the United States. We have expressed a preference for such cooperative effort; however, the major objective is that of causing the immediate development of the natural resources in areas of the Continental Shelf lying seaward of the historic boundaries of the States, and we urge that legislative accomplishment, whether the Secretary of the Interior is to make use of State leasing facilities in a cooperative endeavor, or is to do the job alone. Our enthusiastic support of the Walter, Wilson, and Willis bills, as well as other bills of like character, is based upon the principles and objectives expressly contemplated. The vast portion of the language contained in such bills is highly satisfactory to us, but we believe that certain amendments should be made for purposes of clarification and to carry out the legislative intent. Practically all of the amendments that we have in mind have already been brought to the committee's attention, and we do not wish to be repetitious and to burden the record with superfluous remarks. We do believe that it would be well to emphasize the following suggested amendment, taking the Willis bill (H. R. 357) as an example. In section 2 (e) of title I of H. R. 357, on page 4, line 3, after the word "States", delete the semicolon, substitute a comma, and add the following: “And if the title to the beds of such streams was lawfully patented or conveyed by the United States or any State to any person.' Section 2 (a) of said bill provides "the term 'lands beneath navigable waters' includes (1) all lands within the boundaries of each of the respective States which were covered by waters navigable under the laws of the United States at the time such State became a member of the Union, * * *" This sentence is a restatement of the uniform jurisprudence in the United States. Thus in the case of State of Oklahoma v. State of Texas, United States, Intervener (vol. 258 United States Reports, p. 574), it was held: "Upon the creation of a new State, ownership of the beds of navigable streams within the boundaries passes from the United States to the State in virtue of the constitutional rule of State equality; but not so the beds of streams not navigable (p. 583). "Officials of the United States Public Land Survey are not empowered to settle questions of navigability, and navigability in law cannot be implied from their action in meandering a stream and their failure to extend township and section lines across it" (p. 585). You will observe that ownership of the beds of navigable streams, whether meandered or not, within the boundaries of a State, passed from the United States to the State. Section 2 (e) of title I of H. R. 357, as presently worded, constitutes a broad exception to this rule. An examination of all the hearings shows conclusively that the actual reason for the exception was to protect persons who derived title or patents to unmeandered streams from the United States. As drafted, however, section 2 (e) of title I in fact does not specifically protect the title of persons holding patents from the United States to unmeandered streams, and, on the other hand, it leaves title to the beds of all unmeandered streams in a state of chaos; that is to say, it does not confirm the rule to the effect that title to the beds of all navigable streams, meandered or not, passed to the several States. Thus, as drafted, subsection (e) would imply, to say the least, that the United States either has title to the beds of such unmeandered streams or that the |