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Show WHOSE PUBLIC LANDS? 31 The Tidelands Issue The last of the great issues affecting the ownership of the public lands related to the tidelands off the shores of Louisiana, Texas, and California. Federal officials, uncertain about ownership of these tidelands, permitted local licensing of drilling on the California coast as early as 1894 though large oil pools were not tapped until 1921-1936. Not until 1937 was the question of the ownership and management of the tidelands seriously raised by Federal officials. From then until 1953 the right to control the enormously rich oil deposits under tidelands (sometimes said to be worth $200 billion) absorbed the attention of representatives from the three states principally involved, the oil companies which were doing very well with their licenses to drill from local governments, of Federal officials-notably Harold Ickes-who held out for Federal ownership, and of a strong element in Congress which favored releasing the lands to the states.77 Unlike previous clashes over cession of lands to the states the division of opinion on the tidelands question was not as clearly sectional. There was much support for conveying the tidelands to the states among elements in the East and some opposition in the West. In three cases in 1947 and 1953 the Supreme Court declared that the Federal government "has paramount rights in and power over the tidelands. . . ."78 A substantial majority in Congress did not favor Federal management of the tidelands and in 1953 proceeded to "release and relinquish all right, title, and interest of the United States, if any it has," to the tidelands for a distance of 3 miles from low water mark on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and to 3 marine miles on the Gulf Coast.79 77 Marvin A. Harder, "The Tidelands Controversy," The Municipal University of Wichita Bulletin, No. 20(1949), pp. 3-35. 78 332 U.S., 22; 339 U.S., 700, 720; 347 U.S., 273. 79 67 Stat. 29. Christian Century, LXX (April 22, May 6 and 20, 1953), 468, 535, 596. In the course of the discussions on the tidelands measure, which took up a vast amount of time and of space in the Congressional Record, some things stand out. Conservationists who were opposed to the measure predicted that if voted it would be only the beginning of efforts to convey to the states and through them to private interests the remaining mineral and other reserves. No such action followed. Though the two major parties had taken opposite positions on the measure there was a good deal of crossing the lines on the final vote in both Houses. Conservatively inclined Senators and those still addicted to states' rights arguments were generally favorable to the release to the states, and nationalists and those inclined to be more liberal in their advocacy of the use of Federal powers in behalf of education and social welfare were opposed. Yet there were conservative and liberal members on both sides of the question. Most outstanding was the fact that 12 Senators from western public lands states, including three Republicans whose party was pledged in support of the cession, voted in opposition to cession. Conversely, a number of Senators from old states, who might naturally be expected to line up in favor of national ownership of the rich lands, voted to convey them to the states.80 Partisan politics, dislike of Federal ownership and the greater restrictions on private development of the resources that it might mean, and possibly the unpopularity of some steps the Department of the Interior had taken in public range, mineral, and forest management, counted heavily in behalf of cession. Clearly, the decision of 1953 was not based on the old division of public land states against non-public-land states. After the transfer to the states of Federal rights to the mineral resources in the tide-lands to the 3-mile limit, Congress provided in the Outer Continental Shelf Act of August 80 I have based my analysis mostly on the division in the Senate as shown in the vote of May 5, 1953, Cong. Record, 83d Cong., 1st sess., p. 4488. |
