ter, that the paramount rights and the full dominion, which the Supreme Court found are vested in the United States, are of such a character as to make it clear, at least to us on the Government side who have worked on these cases in the Supreme Court, that the title, or the rights, or whatever you want to call it, are of such a character that they were not contemplated either by the language or the intent of the Mineral Leasing Act.

That act deals with public lands, with lands held for disposition. I do not think that the rights of United States, whatever its rights are, the paramount rights in the marginal sea or in all of the sea, seaward of the low-water mark, are of such a character that the Federal Government can dispose of them, and certainly they are not of the character that are involved in the lands that were dealt with by the Mineral Leasing Act.

Senator CORDON. Do I understand you to say, Mr. Perlman, that the Federal Government, in your opinion, cannot dispose of those lands?

Mr. PERLMAN. I think it is very doubtful, Senator Cordon.

Senator CORDON. What power is there above that paramount power of the sovereignty of the Federal Government that would deny it? Mr. PERLMAN. The Federal Government holds its power over this area, as the Supreme Court has stated, by reason of its relationship to other sovereign nations in the family of nations. It can do a lot of things in that area, but it is somewhat doubtful, Senator, in fact it is highly doubtful, whether the United States Government can divest itself of something that the Supreme Court has held it holds by reason of national external sovereignty. There is that question in it.

Senator SMATHERS. May I ask a question there? Would you say that the Congress can divest itself of that property?

Mr. PERLMAN. I would doubt it, Senator. I say that is a question that the Supreme Court has not passed on, and I certainly do not want to pass on it here now, but I do think that if you read those opinions, the three opinions in the California, Texas, and Louisiana cases, you will have some doubt as to how completely the Congress may divest itself of an attribute of national external sovereignty.

Senator SMATHERS. In other words, there is a situation then, you are saying the Federal Government, neither the executive branch nor the Congress, the legislative branch, has the power to divest itself of a piece of property, we will say.

Mr. PERLMAN. We go back to what Senator Long was asking me a little while ago. You say divest itself of a piece of property. The Constitution gives the Congress the right to dispose of public property, but the Supreme Court has been very careful in all of its opinions to say that we have paramount power and we have full dominion, and has been very careful, at the same time, to eliminate from these decrees and from its opinions a flat declaration as to where title is as we know it with respect to ordinary real-estate holdings, if title as we know it with respect to fast lands may be acquired in the bed of the

ocean.

Senator LONG. Here is a question I wanted to reach. You have stated that the Supreme Court has said that the States do not have title. That is correct, and they have, so far as I know, in the California, Texas, and Louisiana cases. The Supreme Court has, as you said, been careful about one thing, not saying the States had any

rights whatsoever. Nevertheless the Court has not completely closed that issue in the Court's opinion.

For example, in the Texas case the Court, as I recall, used the language that it declined to pass on what rights a State could have by extending its borders as against individuals other than the Federal Government. In orther words, it did not close that question one way or the other. It tended to leave it open, did it not?

Mr. PERLMAN. No, sir. Senator, your question involves another problem entirely. The question as to State boundaries and as to whether a State has the right by unilateral action to extend its own boundaries is involved there.

We were confronted with it when we went to the Supreme Court, for instance, in the California case. California had always claimed a State boundary of 3 land miles, 3 English miles, I believe, not nautical miles.

The Supreme Court accepted that boundary as the boundary of California, but that boundary is a boundary for certain State purposes, a boundary within which a State may exercise its police powers. Crimes that are committed within that boundary are tried in the courts of California, and California can regulate certain State matters within that boundary of 3 miles. But, holding that that was the boundary of California, at the same time the Supreme Court held that the paramount power and full dominion over the submerged lands of the sea starting from the low-water mark were in the Federal Government and not in the State Government.

We were confronted with these acts of Louisiana, Senator, that extended its boundary, I think-the last time-27 miles out into the Gulf. We considered what had happened in California, the insistence on that boundary.

We determined to suggest to the Supreme Court that it should not pass on the validity of Louisiana's unilateral action in extending its boundary. We asked them not to pass on like statutes that had been passed in Texas, the last one of which undertook to extend the boundaries of the State of Texas to the Continental Shelf. We told them that in our opinion it was not necessary to pass on the validity of that legislation in order to determine where the paramount rights were in the bed of the sea.

The Supreme Court did adopt that view, and that is what it said in those opinions. It did not pass on it because Senator, it is clear from what they did in California, and what they did in those other two cases, that boundary is one thing and paramount power or ownership or title, whatever you want to call it, is something else.

A State may on fast land have a boundry, but it does not own the lands within that boundary, unless it acquired them in some particular manner, and here while your boundary-we do not see any necessity for challenging its validity at the moment-may go out 27 miles in the Gulf, you do not have the paramount power or dominion over the beds of the sea within that boundary. You may acquire certain police powers by extending your boundaries. The Federal Government, so far as I know, has no reason to challenge or interfere with that, and it may be important to the State.

Senator LONG. Of course the President declared that the United States claims 45 miles out now, did he not, or something to that effect?

Mr. PERLMAN. No, sir. He claimed, I believe, the right to extract

resources.

Senator LONG. How far out would that be?

Mr. PERLMAN. To the Continental Shelf. That was the proclamation in 1945. But, Senator, I think you will find that the Government has been careful not to claim a boundary farther out than 3 miles. Texas has claimed a boundary of 3 leagues, which is 1011⁄2 miles. We have no reason to object to that boundary so long as it does not interfere with our paramount rights from the low-water mark, although Texas itself undertook and has been undertaking lately to protest against a similar claim by Mexico. They think Mexico ought to be held to a 3-mile limit in order that they may proceed to take fish out of waters that are within 101⁄2 miles of Mexico.

The CHAIRMAN. How about the boundary between Texas and Louisiana in the submerged lands on the Continantal Shelf? Mr. PERLMAN. Between Texas and Louisiana? Well, I haven't heard any question raised about that yet. It undoubtedly will be sometime or another.

Senator LONG. That will be a completely different argument, I believe. What, if any, interpretation do you place on the Supreme Court striking the words "of proprietorship"?

In other words, according to Mr. Justice Frankfurter, here the proposed decree in the California case would have said

The United States of America is now and has been at all times, pertinent hereto possessed of paramount rights of proprietorship in and full dominion and power over the lands, mineral and other things underlying the Pacific Ocean. What significance do you place upon the words "of proprietorship" being stricken after the word "rights"?

Mr. PERLMAN. I thought I had explained that at length before. I think the Supreme Court has been careful. They eliminated that word because all of their opinions have been consistent.

According to their determinations, what we own there, what we have there, what rights are vested in the Federal Government, are an incident of national external sovereignty, acquired by reason of comity in the family of nations.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Perlman, is it not a fact that in the proclamation of the President which asserted the rights in the Continental Shelf, care was observed in the advice of the State Department not to use the word "proprietorship," and that in that proclamation the assertions were only to the paramount right which the Supreme Court has recognized?

Mr. PERLMAN. I do not know what the State Department advised. I was not here.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is my recollection. There was no assertion of ownership in that proclamation.

Mr. PERLMAN. We have been careful in all the investigations that the Justice Department has made on the subject, and we find that the State Department has been careful, not to assert any boundary rights exceeding 3 miles.

We think, by reason of the understanding between the nations interested, that 3 miles is to be recognized as a boundary, and they are 3 nautical miles. We think that California is entitled to 3 nautical miles as a boundary, although it only claimed 3 land miles.

There is a difference there, but its boundary-and this is the thing that I would like to emphasize to the Senator-is one thing. The ownership or the title or paramount power is something else, and that was a reason why we did not question in this litigation in the Supreme Court the right of Louisiana to extend its boundary, because that, to our way of thinking, had nothing to do with the paramount power or ownership, or whatever you want to call it, of the mineral rights in that area.

Senator LONG. Might I ask you this. What has been your experience under the California stipulation following the California decision?

As I understand it, following that decree a stipulation was entered into by the United States Government and the State of California under which the oil companies holding State leases would continue to operate. Have you had satisfactory experience under that agreement?

Mr. PERLMAN. I have not had any real differences of opinion with California that have not been adjusted. We have two stipulations with California, Senator. One of them was the operating stipulation under which it was agreed that California would continue in the future as it had in the past, and all of the revenues that were collected were to be earmarked in a special fund to abide by the final decision of the Supreme Court, and the distribution made according to any action of the Congress.

I just want to explain those two stipulations. One is the operat ing stipulation; the other one is a stipulation we entered into with the State of California in which the Federal Government and the State agreed that landward of certain lines set out in that stipulation the Federal Government was making and would make no claim, and that was done in certain areas so that operations could continue in those areas without any cloud on them or without any question as to regulation and the disposition of the revenues.

The CHAIRMAN. I want the record to show that so far as the chairman is concerned, he does not recognize the lines drawn in that stipulation as binding upon this committee or as decisive of the question which is before the master as to what the real boundary of inland navigable waters might be.

Mr. PERLMAN. That is made clear in the stipulation.

Senator LONG. I understand that.

Mr. PERLMAN. That is just done to make sure we would not claim anything landward of that.

Senator LONG. Would you have any objection to the same approach as far as the States of Louisiana and Texas are concerned? In other words, that type of stipulation, an operating agreement, possibly, in lieu of this type of legislation?

Mr. PERLMAN. Senator, I do not think any such stipulation is needed in the case of Texas. There are very difficult problems in California. by reason of the sinuosity of the coast and the existence of channels and the like which give rise to question as to whether it is open sea or whether it is inland water. Those things have to be judicially determined.

In the case of Texas, the shore line is such that we do not think any stipulation is needed. There is only one well, I believe, one oil well

that is operating in the area that is seaward of the low-water mark, so that there is no need for any stipulation there.

With respect to Louisiana, we have had a line worked out on a map, and we have been advising, I think the Interior Department has been advising, oil companies who ask for information whether their operations are seaward of what we think the low-water mark is or landward of it. In cases where the Interior Department finds them landward of the line, they advise the lessees that the Federal Government has no claim and will make no claim, and seaward of it they advise them that it is within the territory claimed by the United States. We do not think any stipulation is necessary in the case of Louisiana. We think we have worked it out. That line will be, if Louisiana desires to have it done, passed upon by the Court anyhow, but I certainly do not, if I can help it, want to get into the situation that I have been in with respect to the State of California, because after the decision in that case, after the stipulations we entered into, we filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to determine the status of three segments of the coast. They were the segments that are really involved in this controversy. They were the segments from which oil is being produced, and the only segments from which oil is being produced.

We asked the Court to determine where our rights began and where the rights of the States ended, and it has been lying in Court ever since. The Supreme Court referred it to one master and then a second master, and the State of California has been plying that master with documents this high [indicating] every 6 months or more, and months and years go by and there is no determination.

Congressman Doyle is here on a matter that he has a vital interest in, and one in respect to which I sympathize with him, in his effort to get it determined, but California could have had it determined long ago if it had cooperated to get the Court to fix that line. You would then know where you are today.

It is not our fault, but I do not want any more such stipulations, if I can help it.

Senator LONG. Is it your opinion that this act would have to be passed in its entirety? For example, there is one proposal here that would more or less recognize State leases. Then there are other proposals that would permit the Secretary to lease. Do you have any objection to the provision which would confirm State leases standing alone, that is that particular provision in itself, without relation to the rest of this bill?

Mr. PERLMAN. I do not quite understand, Senator.

Senator LONG. Section 1 of this bill sets up a procedure whereby the existing State leases would be confirmed. Then another section sets up standards by which the Secretary would lease on the Continental Shelf.

Do you have any objection to confirming the State leases standing alone without regard to further leasing by the Secretary of the Interior?

Mr. PERLMAN. Well, I would, Senator, because I do not think that the Senate of the United States or the House of Representatives should pass legislation, the sole purpose of which is to confirm leases made by the States, and leave the matter there.