Dr. PROCTOR. It makes a matter of record that I started out to determine whether the Constitution's statement The CHAIRMAN. You see, you are discussing an abstract matter. We are dealing here with specific facts. Dr. PROCTOR. That is to say, the Constitution is abstract? Dr. PROCTOR. That is what I am trying to determine. The CHAIRMAN. I am talking now of the nature and form of your personal claim. You say you have filed some sort of an application with the Secretary of State. Dr. PROCTOR. Founded on my constitutional rights as a citizen of the United States. The CHAIRMAN. The constitutional rights to be made effective usually have to be spelled out under laws. The Constitution is an overall basic instrument of government, and the Congress, acting within that, from time to time since the beginning of this Government has passed specific laws to enable the citizens to exercise the benefits guaranteed them by the Constitution. All I am saying to you, sir, is that apparently from your answers to me you are not acting under any statute of the United States. Dr. PROCTOR. That is a fact. I am just here to determine what my constitutional rights mean. The CHAIRMAN. This is not the committee to determine what your constitutional rights are. That is a matter for the courts to determine. If you have any amendment to suggest to this bill, we will be very glad to entertain your description of that amendment. If you have not, if you are just discussing in the abstract constitutional rights of citizens, including yourself, actually, Doctor, it has no place in this hearing because we can do nothing about it. Dr. PROCTOR. In that case, as to going into the detailed suggestion as to an amendment to the bill, which in whole I am completely opposed to because my interests are to bring this tideland question to a conclusion one way or another The CHAIRMAN. That can only be done by passing some legislation. Dr. PROCTOR. Well, that is what I am contending. The CHAIRMAN. You say you do not want this legislation passed. Have you any other suggestion? Dr. PROCTOR. Yes, I have, very definitely. That is, simply to restore the 3-mile line. That is my suggestion and where I stood from the beginning. I assumed that the 3-mile line meant the boundary. I was not looking for something for nothing. I was simply trying to exercise my rights to develop something that would be of interest to the people and myself possibly a little bit at the same time. The CHAIRMAN. If I understand you, your testimony to this committee is that you desire to recommend such legislation as will give to the States complete authority over all of the submerged lands within the State boundaries. Dr. PROCTOR. Within the 3-mile limit, as I understand it. The CHAIRMAN. I understood you a little while ago to say that you had filed an application on the Continental Shelf beyond the 3-mile line. Dr. PROCTOR. Yes; that is where it is. I am interested inside the 3-mile line also. And it is my observation and conclusion that the resources within the 3-mile line might better be handled by the States than by the Federal Government. I persistently contended that that should be the dividing line between the authority of the two departments of government, the Federal Government and the State gov ernment. The CHAIRMAN. That is very clear. Your position on that matter is very clear, sir. Dr. PROCTOR. That helps a lot. The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any suggested amendment to this committee on this resolution? Dr. PROCTOR. Not on this resolution. The CHAIRMAN. Now, then, do you have any other suggestion to make with respect to legislation? Dr. PROCTOR. Well, as I say, the legislation to settle this tidelands question, I understand there is another bill being introduced. I have not seen it. The only objection I found to the Walters bill was it was ambiguous with respect to the The CHAIRMAN. The Walters bill is not before us at this present time. Dr. PROCTOR. No. But speaking of additional legislation to meet the proposition of settling this tidelands question, I think that the line dividing the Federal authority and State authority, of course, then, is the essential issue. And to determine where the inland waters are separated from the open sea is the essence of the issue. It is 3 miles. For instance, if that distance is 3 miles from the shore, I think that should properly be the high-tide line, because that is the ordinary line that is used in giving deeds, the high-tide line. Otherwise, we will say in the low-tide line. The difference between high tide and low tide is quite an area. It would be without authority. But I want to make the point that bays or estuaries, or whatever you call it, would not be over the line dividing the inland water from the open sea, cannot be over 6 miles long; that is, 3 miles from each shore line. For instance, in the San Pedro Bay at Long Beach, as we have it there, it is a big curved open space or indent in the sea. My conception and my location of my claim as related by the mariner's chart who takes the high-tide line as the base or starting point, in this case I said 3 nautical miles south on meridian 118°, 10 minutes. That is the starting point for locating the specified area to which I had a bill introduced. Of course, what I am directly interested in is the passage of that bill. If I had passage of that bill The CHAIRMAN. Where is that bill, sir? Dr. PROCTOR. Here is a copy of it in here. The CHAIRMAN. Where was it introduced? Dr. PROCTOR. It was introduced in the House by Representative Bradley. The CHAIRMAN. When? Dr. PROCTOR. In the Eightieth Congress. The CHAIRMAN. It is not in this Congress? Dr. PROCTOR. No; it is not in this Congress now. The CHAIRMAN. Then you realize it is not before us. Dr. PROCTOR. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Unless you want to suggest that it should be recommended by this committee. If you will hand it to me, we will have a copy of the bill for the committee files. Dr. PROCTOR. Page 23. Then that helps a lot. The point is, if I owned that area, whatever area might be settled on, I could make a deal with oil companies and do something and begin producing oil. The CHAIRMAN. No doubt you could, if you owned it. Dr. PROCTOR. Well, if I had an opportunity, if you wanted to see it, I could show you how the mechanical approach for producing oil would be possible under the big areas in Texas and Louisiana. But then that would be another story. The CHAIRMAN. That would be another story. I am sure you realize that. Dr. PROCTOR. I surely appreciate your courtesy and generosity. The CHAIRMAN. Well, Doctor, we are very glad to have the material which you have filed with us, and it will be given consideration. Dr. PROCTOR. Thank you very much. The CHAIRMAN. We are in receipt of a statement by Uel T. McCurry, which is presented to the committee by letter of his attorney, Mr. Luke R. Lamb. It will be made a part of the record at this point. (The statement referred to is as follows:) STATEMENT OF UEL T. MCCURRY, LOS ANGELES, CALIF., AN APPLICANT My name is Uel T. McCurry. I reside at 131 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif., and have lived in the State of California since 1923. Like many of the people living in California, and especially in the Los Angeles Basin, I became interested in oil prospecting and exploration in the basin soon after my arrival in Los Angeles, and during the past 28 years I have raised funds to conduct exploration and drilling operations in various parts of California. During the years 1925 and 1926 a geologist by the name of Ralph Arnold interested me in the possibility that there were oil deposits underlying the offshore lands in the marginal sea at Huntington Beach, Calif. At that time there were no offshore operations of any kind in that area. It developed that other persons had envisioned the possibility of oil deposits being located in the marginal sea off Huntington Beach, Calif., and one of the first to file a formal application for lease with the State of California for permission to conduct drilling operations in the marginal sea was a man by the name of Arthur Carr. This application for lease, together with various other applications, including those filed by myself and my associate, D. D. Corum, was denied by the surveyor general of the State of California. Carr and others instituted actions in the superior court, Orange County, Calif., to compel issuance of State leases to them. The court determined that a city ordinance of the city of Huntington Beach prohibited the drilling for oil within 1 mile on either side of the city limits of Huntington Beach. The Pacific Ocean is one side of the city limits of Huntington Beach. It should be pointed out that numerous oil wells are drilled on city blocks within the city limits. On Carr's appeal from the superior court decision to the district court of appeal, the decision was affirmed. I did not participate in the litigation conducted by Carr and his group, but D. D. Corum and I, along with Carr and his associates, were the first to apply for State leases in the marginal seas off Huntington Beach. I wish to bring to the committee's attention this fact. Lying between the onshore oil field at Huntington Beach and the marginal sea is a strip of land on which is situated the right-of-way of the Pacific Electric Railway Co. This rightof-way parallels the coast from about Seal Beach, Calif., to below and south of Huntington Beach. In 1927, or thereabouts, the Standard Oil Co. of California acquired drilling rights on the right-of-way from the Pacific Electric Railway Co. Standard drilled several wells on the right-of-way at Huntington Beach, which are said to have unintentionally drifted out under the marginal sea. It came to the notice of the State of California that wells drilled along the right-of-way, and also on city blocks a considerable distance inland, were slanting out under the marginal sea and withdrawing oil from the submerged lands under the sea. The State instituted proceedings to make the oil companies account for the oil withdrawn from the marginal sea. Numerous suits were filed by Standard Oil Co. alleging that the oil wells located in the city blocks of Huntington Beach were trespassing underneath the rightof-way to secure oil from the marginal sea. Later on, in about 1928-29, applications for State leases in the marginal seas were filed by Signal Oil & Gas Co., and Petrol Oil Co., and other individual operators. These lease applications were granted and leases issued by the State. At about this time the Standard Oil Co., or one of its subsidiary companies, purchased the unsold town site of the city of Huntington Beach. This purchase, together with the lease on the Pacific Electric right-of-way, about sewed up control of onshore locations from which to whipstock wells out under the marginal sea. At about this same time the California Legislature passed an act requiring all bidders for leases in these offshore lands to have an onshore location from which to whipstock the wells out under the marginal sea. In about 1932 I again became interested in the question of who owned and controlled these submerged lands underlying the marginal sea. I spent several years of individual study and research in connection with this question and finally concluded to my own satisfaction that all right, title, and interest in such lands was vested in the Federal Government. On July 27, 1936, I wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, a copy of which is attached to this statement. In this letter I brought to the attention of the President the proposition that the United States was the true owner of the submerged lands underlying the marginal sea off Huntington Beach. After waiting 3 weeks without receiving a reply, on August 17, 1936, at my insistence, my wife and three associates filed application for leases in the submerged lands off Huntington Beach with the General Land Office of the Interior Department, located at Los Angeles, and paid the necessary filing fees. Several days thereafter I received a letter from then Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes, dated August 17, 1936, in which he expressed his opinion to the effect that the submerged lands belonged to the State of California and did not come within the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. A copy of Secretary Icke's letter of that date is attached hereto. In about October 1936 the Department of the Interior issued formal and final rejections to the lease applications filed by my wife and my three friends. Upon receiving notice that the United States disclaimed any ownership and right to the submerged lands I got in touch with the officials of the Department of the Interior by letter and by telephone and arranged to come to Washington in the spring of 1937 with my attorney, Ben L. Blue, now deceased, to seek a more complete hearing with respect to the application for Federal leases. We spent the months of April and May 1937 confering almost daily with Nathan Margold, the then Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, now deceased, and Harry Edelstein, then and now Assistant Solicitor. During these conferences we were able to demonstrate to the officials of the Department of the Interior that the principle of Federal ownership had strong legal basis. Secretary Ickes, having maintained a fair and reasonable stand on the question of Federal ownership, was likewise open to argument and, after several meetings with Solicitor Margold on the matter, the Secretary became convinced that the cause of Federal ownership of the marginal sea areas should be vigorously prosecuted. That decision was made in the early summer of 1937. It is my understanding that Secretary Ickes recommended to the Attorney General and to the President that a suit be instituted in behalf of the United States to settle the question of ownership of the submerged lands in the marginal sea. Although Secretary Ickes, having been convinced that there was a strong interest of the United States in these lands, became a vigorous champion of the cause of Federal ownership and continued to press for the institution of immediate suit, it took from 1937 to 1946, approximately 10 years, before such a suit was filed by the United States asserting Federal ownership. May I bring to your attention that during the 10 years in which this matter lay before the Attorney General, many millions of barrels of oil were extracted from the submerged lands. About 90 days before the Supreme Court decision in United States v. California was handed down, I made a trip to Washington to explore the attitude of Federal officials with respect to the position of the applicants for Federal leases in the event the Federal Government won its case. I became very much disturbed at the information I obtained, which was to the effect that it was quite likely that the State of California would win this case, but in the event the Federal Government did win it, the original Federal applicants would be disqualified in one manner or another so that in no event were they to receive Federal leases. I returned to Los Angeles and on March 4, 1947, I wrote a letter to President Truman in which I expressed my concern and apprehension at the information which I had unearthed in Washington. A copy of this letter is attached hereto and also a copy of the reply that I received from Oscar L. Chapman, Acting Secretary of Interior, dated April 3, 1947. Upon receipt of the letter from Mr. Chapman, it became clear that some further efforts were necessary if any of the original applicants for Federal leases were to be accorded fair or equitable treatment. On June 23, 1947, the Supreme Court handed down its decision resolving the question of ownership insofar as the State of California was concerned and determined, first, that the lands underlying the marginal sea did not belong to the State of California and, second, that the United States had paramount rights in, and full control, dominion, and power over the submerged lands of the Continental Shelf. Upon reading the decision of the Supreme Court I became convinced that, with the question of Federal ownership having been finally decided, the rights of the original applicants for Federal leases would be recognized and leases would be granted to them. On October 6, 1947, Secretary of Interior Krug ruled that, although the Federal Government had paramount rights in and to the submerged lands, the Department of Interior had no authority to lease such lands to the original applicants because the provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, as amended, did not apply to the submerged lands in the marginal sea. Accordingly, all applications for Federal leases covering such submerged lands filed during the years 1934, 1935, and 1936 were thereby finally rejected by the Secretary. There have been specific bills introduced in each Congress of the past several years to quitclaim to the States these tremendously valuable offshore lands. In my opinion these quitclaim bills are extreme legislation, particularly at this time of national emergency with a Federal budget that requires sacrifice by every American. It seems to me that the United States would be acting with more concern for the welfare of the country as a whole if the millions of dollars of royalties for oil produced from the marginal seas were made available to the Federal Government to defray at least some portion of the national budget. Senate Joint Resolution 20 is slightly different from the so-called quitclaim legislation in that at least it does provide for some royalties to come to the United States. However, the resolution indicates that it is based on considerations of equity and the introductory clauses in the resolution make considerable point of the equities which exist in favor of the State leaseholders, an equity or equities which have been handsomely and generously compensated for by the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil which State lessees have extracted from Federal property in the marginal seas. Senate Joint Resolution 20, while it purports to take nothing away from applicants for Federal leases, recognizes nothing more than the right of Federal applicants to litigate in the courts of the United States, after having already expended more than 15 years before the administrative Departments of Justice and Interior. Within the past few days Senator Murray has introduced amendments to Senate Joint Resolution 20 which is the first affirmative action taken to in some way compensate the equities of the early advocates of Federal ownership and original applicants for Federal leases. Although these proposed amendments will greatly reduce the area embraced with the original applications, it affords some relief to those entitled thereto with injury to no one. I sincerely urge the adoption of these amendments by the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. EXHIBIT 1 JULY 27, 1936. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: In the tidelands just offshore of southern California are no less than seven major oil fields with a very great possibility that further survey work will show at least four more, all belonging to the United States. |