then he cites some situations.

I also have for acknowledgment your letters of December 18, 1947, and December 29, 1947, in the second of which you advised that February 23, 1948, had been set for hearings on legislation relative to submerged lands. We will be glad to have a representative of the Department of Justice appear at that time.

Mr. Chairman, there appears in the brief of the State of California, at page 283, the following

Senator DONNELL. Is that not the appendixes?

Senator MCCARRAN. Maybe it is. I guess that is right, Senator.

The 1927 opinion of Attorney General Mitchell advising that title to submerged lands in the Pacific Ocean and Bay of San Pedro were vested in the city of Los Angeles as successor to the State of California (supra, pp. 187–188).

Then on the next page:

The 1915 opinion of the Attorney General's Office that the city of Los Angeles owned the submerged lands in the Bay of San Pedro (supra, pp. 188–189). Then the next paragraph:

The 1934 opinion of the United States Attorney General's office that title to the submerged lands in the marginal sea outside the Newport Bay Harbor entrance, granted to the United States by warranty deed, was vested in that city as grantee of the State (supra, pp. 214-215).

Then in the next paragraph:

The opinion of the United States Attorney General accompanying the 1934 grant of submerged lands in the open sea adjoining North Island, Calif., advising that title was vested in the State (supra, pp. 196–198; 200–201).

The next paragraph:

The opinions of the United States Attorney General rendered in 1925 in connection with the grant of submerged lands by the State of Washington to the United States adjacent to Fort Canby (supra, pp. 255–257) ; and

The opinion of the Attorney General accompanying the grant of submerged lands for a lighthouse site in the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Seaconnet River, Rhode Island (supra, p. 278).

Attention is called to the opinion of the Attorney General's Office dated February 28, 1902 advising the War Department that title to all accretions formed against the East Jetty breakwater on tide and submerged lands in the Pacific Ocean and Bay of San Pedro belonged to the State of California and not to the United States.

Presumably, there were Attorney General's opinions in connection with the grants for the submerged lands in the marginal sea outside the entrance to Galveston Harbor (supra, p. 257); for the submerged lands extending into the marginal sea of the Atlantic for the St. John's River Jetty (supra, p. 265); for the grant extending 2 miles into the Gulf of Mexico at the entrance of Crystal River (supra, p. 271); and for the four grants extending into the marginal sea of the Atlantic made by South Carolina outside the entrance to Winyah Bay and to Charleston Harbor (supra, p. 272).

I draw the attention of the committee to that in view of the letter which we received from Mr. Ford, which I have read.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I request of the chairman that he make a request on the Department of Justice for a copy of all opinions rendered by the Attorney General of the United States as far back as 100 years, bearing on the subject of the ownership and title to submerged lands.

If the number of opinions on the subject be too numerous to copy, then that they be produced here in the original form in which they must of necessity exist in the Department of Justice.

I also request that this committee request of the Department of Justice that they bring to this committee all title opinions. There is a

distinction between the opinions of the Attorney General on a specific subject and opinions rendered by the Department of Justice as to title. Title opinions will bear on a specific case at a specific time and may not be printed as an opinion of the Attorney General but may merely be a letter from the Attorney General to someone as regards his opinion as to the title of a specific piece of land.

All title opinions bearing on the subject of submerged lands and title and ownership should be before this committee, and I shall ask that they be inserted into the record at the proper place.

They should be made available to this committee.

I am advised-and I say this rather hastily-that it has been stated by the Department of Justice to those who sought to get these opinions, that no such opinions exist; but that cannot be true, in view of what appears in the brief of the State of California, which certainly cannot be denied, because the opinions exist, one by Attorney General Mitchell and others.

I think a search should be made for all opinions bearing on the subject, and I ask that the committee request-or the chairman request them, and in behalf of the committee-that the Department of Justice furnish the committee with the matters to which I have referred.

Senator DONNELL. I think that is a proper request. I second the motion.

Representative GOSSETT. Will you also include in that, Senator, any advisory opinions issued by the Attorney General or the Solicitor General bearing on the subject?

Senator MCCARRAN. I would amend that by asking for any advisory opinions rendered by the Attorney General on the subject, or by the Solicitor General on the subject.

Senator DONNELL. I second the Senator's motion, as so amended. Senator MOORE. All right; that will be done.

Senator MCCARRAN. What I have in mind in this, Mr. Chairman, is so that Congress may be fully advised in the premises. I make the bald statement that has been made here, and I want either to support it or have it denied by the record-that the Attorney General of the United States, through the years, has rendered opinion after opinion on this very subject and in each instance has held that the submerged lands and tidelands belong to the States bordering on the ocean at that point.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL B. BROWN, GENERAL COUNSEL, INDEPENDENT PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Russell B. Brown. I am general counsel for the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Senator DONNELL. Where is your home, Mr. Brown?

Mr. BROWN. At the present time I am living over in Virginia. My home is Oklahoma. I have been here for some time.

Senator DONNELL. What part of the State of Oklahoma?

Mr. BROWN. The southern part. Ardmore.

Senator DONNELL. Would you mind telling us, unless you already have it in here, something of your background, your experience, how long you have lived in Ardmore, how long you have been connected with the oil industry, and so forth, please?

Mr. BROWN. I went to the Ardmore Indian Territory in 1897. From there I went to the common schools in the Territorial days, and from there to the University of Chicago.

Senator DONNELL. Did you take a degree from the University of Chicago?

Mr. BROWN. I did not finish. I took enough to get out. From there I went back to the general practice of law in Oklahoma at Ardmore. Senator DONNELL. Had you received a law degree when you started in?

Mr. BROWN. No. I passed the bar examination.

Senator DONNELL. When did you start to practicing law?

Mr. BROWN. 1912.

Senator DONNELL. For how long a time did you practice law?

Mr. BROWN. I practiced continuously there until 1939, in general practice. Then I came here representing the Independent Petroleum Association.

While there I was not only in general practice but I was city attorney for the city of Ardmore. I was United States probate attorney for the Chickasaw Nation of Indians and the county attorney for that county in the State of Oklahoma.

Senator DONNELL. Would you mind telling us just what is the Independent Petroleum Association of America, for which you are general counsel?

Mr. BROWN. The Independent Petroleum Association of America is an association of independent oilmen, whose business is exclusively within the United States. They are largely producers of petroleum.

In some instances they also refine, but in most instances they produce petroleum. It was organized in 1929 at Colorado Springs, following a conference there called on oil problems.

Senator DONNELL. Do you have any literature here that gives the names of the officers and the bylaws, and so on?

Mr. BROWN. I do not. I will be glad to get it for you, Senator. Senator DONNELL. Would you mind furnishing that for our files, a copy for each members of the committee, please, sir?

Mr. BROWN. Yes. You mean by that, the officers?

Senator DONNELL. The officers and the constitution and the bylaws, and if there are advisory committees and the like. In other words, the personnel that goes to make up the entire set-up of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, including the documents or copies of them which show the purposes and the method of operation. Mr. BROWN. I will be glad to do that.

Senator MOORE. It is a pretty competent organization.

Mr. BROWN. I appear here representing the members of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a national association of independent oilmen whose interest is largely in the production of oil, exclusively in the United States.

From their viewpoint there is the necessity that Congrss approve a policy such as is suggested in the proposed bill, S. 1988. The failure of Congress to take some such action as is here proposed means the destruction of a large part of the effort normally provided by the group for whom I am speaking. The future of the domestic producers of petroleum will be greatly affected by the policy that Congress adopts in this matter.

The direct and first point of our concern is that the tidelands be developed under the State administrations and controls which historically have been conducive to development. Secondly, we do not want to see a locking-up of these present and potential reserves. Those for whom I speak appreciate this opportunity to acquaint you with their stand in this matter, a stand that has been stated repeatedly by resolution over a period of years.

Their position is that the welfare of the people of the United States is best served by an assured supply of petroleum products available within the control of the people of the United States.

It is our judgment that failure to clearly define the title and rights in the States of the Union to the lands involved herein will make of the United States a "have not" Nation with relation to abundant natural petroleum supplies. This will reduce the people of the United States who have been so long independent with relation to our petroleum products to a position of dependence for these important products on remote sources of supply in countries of uncertain relationship with ours and in the hands of a few large petroleum organizations capable of monopolization and cartel controls free from the imposition of future legislative controls here.

The legal questions involved here, as well as the political issue between the Federal and State Governments, are being presented to your committee by others. I shall not attempt to duplicate these presen

tations.

We recognize that this question is one of fundamental policy and is of primary concern to the States of the Union and the union which they have formed for mutual advantage. The economic effect of this policy is of the first importance to us as individuals; and, finally, it affects us as citizens of the States of the entire Union of States.

It may be that we as individuals can be disposed of without the destruction of the Union. We doubt that the ideals of government that have made our work possible can safely be destroyed. Therefore, disregarding whatever selfish, personal position we may take, we now speak to you of the great effect of the possible destruction of the ideals we represent or the Government that made our accomplishments possible.

The domestic oil industry, and particularly the independent producers, have been compelled for many years to combat a philosophy of the administrative branch of Government that would effectively end the existence of the independent industry if it were given practical effect.

In season and out, regardless of facts and circumstance, there has been continuous effort to expand foreign operations and limit domestic ones. The present attempted seizure of coastal lands is one more of the attempts to make the philosophy effective. This has not been a matter of one political faith as opposed to another; it has gone on regardless of which party was in control. The utterances of the Federal Oil Conservation Board, appointed in 1924, whose alarmist predictions of exhaustion and whose estimates of remaining reserves, delivered with great certitude, aroused the domestic industry more fully than anything theretofore had done-this Board preached nonuse of domestic resources, heavy reliance on the oil of foreign countries, some of which, incidentally, have since ended any such reliance by confiscation of the oil industry in their boundaries.

The record would include the classic utterance of the Secretary of the Interior in 1931, in an interview:

If I were landlord of this country, I would see that we used as much imported oil as possible, and let the other fellow waste his reserves.

It would take in the many assertions of a still later Secretary of the Interior on the "we're running out of oil" theme, distributed as signed articles in magazines and newspapers. It would include statements of the present holder of that office.

If we were to write the full record, we would include numerous statements of the National Resources Committee and its successor, the National Resources Planning Board. We would surely want to emphasize that Committee's statement in 1939 that

it is one of the unfortunate errors of our national development that early in our history the public ownership of all subsurface mineral wealth was not declared: such a step would have been so simple and would have meant so much in terms of conservation 串 * *

and so on and on, in the same vein. Congress finally ended the labors of the National Resources Planning Board, but its views still have some acceptance.

In 1930 Sir Henri Deterding, then head of the Royal Dutch-Shell interests, in an interview in Los Angeles, supplemented the more stately utterances of some in Government and made the application of the philosophy direct and personal. He ws quoted as saying that—

in modern business the small producer cannot exist. The public wants cheap prices. This can only be given by cutting down production costs, and the little fellow cannot do it. It may not be fair, but it cannot be helped, for it is only the big companies that can give the public the service it requires.

Senator MOORE. Wait a minute, Mr. Brown, until Senator Donnell returns. I want him to hear this and learn something about the oil business.

Representative GOSSETT. I would like for Mr. Brown to go back to the paragraph beginning at the top of page 3. It is very important, and I want Senator Donnell to hear about the National Resources Planning Board and their program.

Senator DONNELL. Mr. Brown, I ask your pardon for not giving attention at this moment. I intended to go through your statement here. I certainly would appreciate any restatement.

Mr. BROWN. I appreciate your argument in this case, and I hope to join with you in a full understanding. [Reading:]

The record would include the classic utterance of the Secretary of the Interior in 1931, in an interview: "If I were landlord of this country, I would see that we used as much imported oil as possible, and let the other fellow waste his reserves."

Senator DONNELL. Who was the Secretary of the Interior at that time?

Mr. BROWN. That was Secretary Wilbur.

Senator DONNELL. I am hesitant to ask this, because it might hurt Mr. Wilbur's feelings; but is Mr. Wilbur still living-do you know? Mr. BROWN. My impression is that he is. I think he is at Stanford University.

Senator DONNELL. That was my impression, too. Yet I wanted to be quite clear on it.

Mr. BROWN. I have that impression; yes.