in off the coast of California and Russia needs the oil, may she not ask for her share of the oil in that belt as a member of the family of nations? Seemingly, this would follow from the Hobbs' theory inasmuch as he contends the belt is owned by the family of nations' What authority is going to decide Russia's rights and the rights of the United States to such oil? Hasn't this danger been the very reason for the rule since 1598 that a littoral nation owns the submerged lands underlying the seas adjoining? Ownership must be in the littoral nation to prevent question arising as to rights as between members of the family of nations to a share of the resources produced from the seas adjoining a member of the family of nations. This rule of ownership enabled exclusive appropriation by littoral nation and prevented the exhaustion of such resources by the family of nations. See Valtel, Law of Nations, 1758 (Book I, c. XXIII, sec. 289, Fenwick trans. in Classics of Int. Law, 1916, pp. 108-109). Under the California decision the right of the United States to exclusive appropriation of the resources in the adjoining coastal belt may no longer exist. If it does not exist, these resources may easily be exhausted by the family of nations. For this reason alone, if not for many others, S. 1988 should be enacted by the Congress.

Mr. COVERT. At this time I present the statement of Frank O. Sether, assistant commissioner of public lands of the State of Washington, concerning S. 1988, and ask that said statement be made a part of the record of this hearing.

Senator MOORE. It will ve received and made a part of the record. (The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF FRANK O. SETHER, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC LANDS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

I am filing this brief statement on behalf of the commissioner of public lands representing the State of Washington.

According to the statutes of the State of Washington, the commissioner of public lands has jurisdiction and control of all of the public lands, including tide lands and shore lands, in the State of Washington excepting those lands that are used by the State in connection with its institutions and which are commonly known as operational properties. Any disposal or rights granted in those properties are handled through the commissioner of public lands.

The boundaries of the State of Washington on its ocean side are located in the following manner:

1. Pursuant to the Enabling Act of Congress, approved February 2, 1889, the constitution of the State of Washington was adopted and was, pursuant to said Act, proclaimed by the President of the United States as having been formed and adopted pursuant to said enabling act, proclamation No. 8, November 11, 1889 (26 Stat. 1552). By the terms of said enabling act, upon such proclamation by the President of the United States, the State of Washington was thereupon admitted into the Union.

2. By article XXIV of the constitution of the State of Washington, thus proclaimed by the President, pursuant to the said enabling act of Congress, the boundaries of the State were established as follows:

1. "State boundaries: The boundaries of the State of Washington shall be as follows: Beginning at a point in the Pacific Ocean 1 marine league," and running parallel along the coast line from the mouth of the north ship channel of the Columbia River, to a line which is the boundary line between the United States and British Columbia.

3. In its constitution proclaimed by the President and adopted by this act of Congress, the State of Washington declared in article XVII, section 1, as follows:

"Declaration of State ownership: The State of Washington asserts its ownership to the beds and shores of all navigable waters in the State up to and including the line of ordinary high tide in waters where the tide ebbs and flows, and up to and including the line of ordinary high water within the banks of all navigable rivers and lakes."

It will be seen therefore that the State of Washington, since its admission into the Union, has claimed title to all submerged land within the 3-mile limit on the ocean front and also has claimed title to the beds and shores of all navigable waters within its territorial limits.

The distance from the south boundary of the State, to wit, the north ship channel of the Columbia, to the north boundary, to wit, the boundary line between the United States and British Columbia, is approximately 160 miles. Extending this westerly boundary 1 marine league would demonstrate that in this area from the north ship channel of the Columbia River to the boundary line between the United States and British Columbia, there are approximately 300,000 acres of submerged land.

The map of the State of Washington will also show that in addition to the ocean tidelands there is also within the State a large body of water known as Puget Sound. On Puget Sound are located the important cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellingham, Bremerton, and others. This is also a large body of water known as Grays Harbor, on which are located the important cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam. There is also an inland body of water known as Willapa Harbor, on which are located the important cities of South Bend and Raymond.

Up the Columbia River, which forms the boundary between the States of Washington and Oregon and which is affected by tidal flow, are the important cities of Long View, Kelso, and Vancouver.

A line drawn from a point known as Admiralty Head, marked on the map as Port Townsend, and across Whidbey Island, would be the dividing line between what is known as the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. A check at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey office in Seattle, Wash., shows that the Straits of Juan de Fuca, as above described, contain approximately 1.628 square miles, or approximately 1,000,000 acres, one-half of which is in the United States and one-half in Canada.

The area shown on the maps of the State and described as Puget Sound contains approximately 561 square miles, or approximately 360,000 acres. The total shore line of Puget Sound is 986 nautical miles.

These figures do not include the shore-line frontage or acreage of Grays Harbor, Willapa Harbor, and that portion of the Columbia River lying within the boundaries of the State of Washington.

It is in defense particularly of our ocean tidelands, and primarily of the tidelands within the Puget Sound area, that we are insisting that Senate bill No. 1988 should become a law.

Some of the tidelands on the ocean front are inaccessible because of the rugged coast line, but from a point marked approximately Cape Elizabeth on the north to Fort Canby on the south, the Washington coast line is a long series of sandy beaches. These beaches have been declared to be a part of the public highway of the State of Washington by the terms of chapters CV and CX of the Session Laws of the State of Washington for 1901, and chapter 54, Session Laws of the State of Washington of 1935.

In addition, the State of Washington has issued to parties who have qualified approximately 130 oil-and-gas permits along this coast line, and one large western oil company is now drilling on State-owned land on the ocean front.

Since its admission into the Union, the State of Washington has sold and leased thousands of acres of tideland along the Straits of Juan de Fuca, in the Puget Sound, Grays Harbor, Willapa Harbor, and Columbia River areas.

I wish to call particular attention to the fact that parts of many of our industrial cities are constructed on reclaimed and filled tidelands. In the city of Seattle the major portion of the south industrial district is built on reclaimed tidelands, and all of the dock and warehouse facilities along the water front are also constructed on that type of land. The area in the city of Seattle alone that has been reclaimed and now used for highly industrialized purposes is approximately 3,300 acres.

In the city of Tacoma, the portion of the city on which the large lumber mills and plywood plants are constructed is all reclaimed tideland.

In the city of Olympia, all of the port facilities and large portions of the downtown business district are constructed on reclaimed tidelands.

This is true of the other Puget Sound cities of Everett, Bellingham, Bremerton, Anacortes, and the cities of Fort Townsend and Port Angeles along the straits. It is also true of the other towns previously mentioned in Grays Harbor, Willapa Harbor, and the Columbia River.

We believe that a careful reading of the California case will bear out our contention that a cloud has been placed on the title to tidelands, some of which are still in State ownership, but the greater portion of which have heretofore been deeded by the State to firms and individuals.

The receipts from the sale and lease of reclaimed tidelands and the oil-andgas permit rentals on the ocean front are paid into the general fund of the State of Washington. It is from that fund that the common schools of the State are supported and from which contributions are made to old-age assistance, and from which the normal functions of State government are supported.

The revenue received from our oil-and-gas permits is not large at this time but, because of the drilling operations in the State of Washington now being carried on in three distinct areas on the west side of the State, there is an increasing demand for oil-and-gas permits on these submerged lands. We believe that, if oil is discovered along our coast line, our State-and particularly the schools of our State-should have the benefit of the revenues from that source.

We submit that because of the manner in which the State of Washington was admitted to the Union, that the State of Washington is the primary owners of all land along is ocean front westward 1 marine league, or 3 miles, and is also the primary owner of all of the tideland and submerged land in the Straits of Juan de Fuca within the boundaries of the State of Washington; that it is also the primary owner of all of the tidelands in the Puget Sound area, the Grays Harbor area, the Willapa Harbor area, and the Columbia River within the boundaries of the State of Washington, and feel that because of the manner of the admission of our State into the Union, and the fact that the State of Washington had, since its admission, exercised jurisdiction over and claimed title to all of its tidelands and submerged lands, that it is necessary that the United States, by proper legislation, clear title of the State of Washington to these lands.

Senator MOORE. We will first hear Senator Holland, who wishes to make a statement.

STATEMENT OF HON. SPESSARD L. HOLLAND, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Senator HOLLAND. I appear for the purpose of introducing a statement of Mr. John C. Cooper, Jr., formerly a citizen of Florida, and former president of our State bar association.

Since that time, he has served as general counsel and later as executive vice president of the Pan American Airways, and is now the head of the Institute for Advanced Study in Aviation in the School of Economics at Princeton, N. J.

He is certainly one of the most outstanding authorities on air law in the Nation and in the world, if not indeed the most outstanding. He has been concerned about some aspects of this bill which frankly presented a new point of view so far as I was concerned, and that was the question of the control of the air space above this tidal belt surrounding the various States.

Mr. Cooper has written an eight-page letter to the Honorable Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, dated March 5, and in connection with said letter, he has forwarded also to Senator Wiley a printed pamphlet entitled "State Sovereignty v. Federal Sovereignty of Navigable Airspace," being volume 15 of the reprints from the Journal of Air Law and Commerce.

(The statement referred to follows:)

Hon. ALEXANDER WILEY,

THE ISTITUTE FOR ADVANCUD STUDY,

SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICS,
Princeton, N. J., March 5, 1948.

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate,

Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR SENATOR WILEY: Bills S. 1988 and S. 2165 are now pending in the Senate. It is my understanding that bill S. 1988 is before the Committee on the Judiciary. Both of these bills appear to grow out of the situation created by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in U. S. v. State of California

affecting the 3-mile marginal ocean belt along the shores of the United States and the lands thereunder.

As I am neither favoring nor opposing the adoption of one or the other of these bills, you may feel that this letter has no place in the record. I do, however, wish to place before you, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, certain questions which arise from this decision and which, so it seems to me, may require the consideration of your committee.

My interest in this matter is based on my continuing study of the legal problems of the United States in international aviation. I think that some of the members of your committee are perhaps familiar with the reasearch work which I have been doing since I became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study early in 1946.

It is a generally accepted rule in international law that sovereignty in the airspace coincides with sovereignty on the surface. This doctrine was first generally accepted by its inclusion in the Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation, signed at Paris in 1919. The United States while signing this convention, did not ratify it. The United States, did, however, adopt the same principle of airspace sovereignty by the passage of the Air Commerce Act of 1926 and by the signature and ratification of the Pan American Convention on Commercial Aviation signed at Habana in 1928. Article 1 of the Habana convention is as follows:

"The high contracting parties recognize that every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory and territorial waters.” The same principle was restated by the adoption of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which amended part of section 6 of the Air Commerce Act of 1926 to read as follows:

"The United States of America is hereby declared to possess and exercise complete and exclusive national sovereignty in the airspace above the United States, including the airspace above all inland waters and the airspace above those portions of the adjacent marginal high seas, bays, and lakes, over which by international law or treaty or convention the United States exercises national jurisdiction."

Again this principle was accepted by the United States in the signature and subsequent ratification of the Convention on International Civil Aviation signed at Chicago in 1944 and which became effective on April 4, 1947. The relevant articles of the Chicago convention are as follows.

"ARTICLE 1. The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.

"ART. 2. For the purposes of this convention the territory of a State shall be deemed to be the land areas and territorial waters adjacent thereto under the sovereignty, suzerainty, protection, or mandate of such State."

It will be noted from the foregoing that international law now recognizes as part of the territory of a sovereign State the airspace over the lands, inland waters, and territorial waters of such State. The latter "territorial waters" are deemed to be synonymous with the "3-mile marginal ocean belt" referred to by the Supreme Court of the United States in U. S. v. California.

Flowing from this now-accepted doctrine of airspace sovereignty is the unquestioned right of every sovereign State to admit or exclude such foreign aircraft as it may determine. No foreign aircraft may enter the airspace territory of the United States without the specific permission of the United States, and such entry is a privilege and not a right. Although international law accords to merchant shipping in time of peace transit privileges without specific permit through the territorial waters of the several States, this doctrine does not apply to the airspace over such territorial waters. The air boundaries of the United States facing the high seas are coincident with the outer boundaries of its territorial waters. In the administration of the United States statutes applicable to international aviation it is therefore quite necessary that there be no possible doubt as to where the air boundaries of the United States are located.

As I read the opinion of the Court in U. S. v. California it would appear that the Court has found that the United States, since the adoption of the Constitution, has acquired the 3-mile belt which would otherwise have been part of the high seas. For the Court says:

"Not only has acquisition, as it were, of the 3-mile belt, been accomplished by the National Government, but protection and control of it has been and is a function of national external sovereignty."

It would, therefore, appear that the Court has judicially determined that the external ocean boundaries of the United States are at the outer limit of such 3-mile belt. From this it would also appear that foreign aircraft are entitled to approach the shores of the United States through the airspace over the high seas up to the outer limits of the airspace above such 3-mile belt, but that the permission of the United States must be obtained if and when such aircraft desire to approach closer to our shores.

At this point the decision in U. S. v. California leaves open a most difficult situation. It would appear that certain States, as for example Texas and Florida and perhaps others, contend that their boundaries extend into the high seas a distance in excess of the 3-mile limit discussed by the Court in U. S. v. California. The question then arises as to whether such excess is or is not part of the territory of the United States, and as to whether the airspace over such excess is under the sovereign control of the United States. This is not an academic question. It is obvious, as I have stated earlier, that the exact air boundaries of the United States must be stated and known so that no foreign nation may be in any doubt as to the extent of our sovereign air rights.

Neither of the bills which have been introduced in the Senate concerning title to the lands under territorial waters assist in clarifying this question. I think that you will agree with me that the matter should not be left open.

A second, and perhaps more difficult question is this: Is the airspace over the 3-mile belt purely Federal territory, or is it part of the territory of the several adjacent States so that the control of air commerce and navigation through such airspace is in the same status as in the airspace over the lands and inland waters of the several States?

The Court in its opinion has gone out of its way to point out that the Thirteen Original Colonies did not separately acquire ownership to the 3-mile belt. It is also stated, as I have quoted above, that the 3-mile belt was acquired by the National Government after this country became a separate Nation. It is well settled, in my view, that since the adoption of the Constitution the several States of the Union have Jen without authority to aquire new trritory. If, therefore, the maritime 3-mile belt was acquired after the adoption of the Constitution, doubt seems to exist as to whether any State, by legislative or other act, could incorporate within its terriory any part of the high seas beyond the low-water mark along the shores of such State. belt is not legally a part of the territory of the adjacent State, then obviously If this 3-mile the airspace over such 3-mile belt is not a part of such State, and State laws are not applicable therein.

The able statement filed before your committee by Hon. Millard Caldwell, Governor of Florida, raises the question of the effect of the decision on future application of police powers of the States in the 3-mile belt and indicates very proper doubt as to whether the Court considers this belt as State territory. While the Court does remark at one point that “conceding that the State has been authorized to exercise local police power functions in the part of the marginal belt within its declared boundaries," it must be recalled that the Court concluded the same part of its opinion with the following firm and controlling statement:

"Now that the question is here, we decide for the reasons we have stated that California is not the owner of the 3-mile marginal belt along its coast. and that the Federal Government rather than the State has paramount rights in and power over that belt, an incident to which is full dominion over the resources of the soil under that water area, including oil."

This would seem to be a clear holding that the 3-mile belt is not part of the State of California and that it is purely Federal territory. As a result the opinion casts the gravest doubt on the right of the States to enforce their laws on board vessels in the waters included in the marginal 3-mile belt. Even greater confusion is caused as to crimes committed in the airspace over this 3-mile belt. A situation is created which should be rectified.

Chapter 11 of title 18 of the United States Code (particularly secs. 451-468) covers the punishment of crimes and offenses when committed upon the high seas, or on any other waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, on board United States vessels, or when committed on lands reserved or acquired for the use of the United States or any place purchased or otherwise acquired by the United States by consent of the legislature of the State in which the