Opinion ID: 107057
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the three-mile or three-league limitation.

Text: The Court calls attention to one other change in the bill before its enactment, and on the significance attributed to this one small change depends the validity of the Court's entire opinion. The Court says that this change was fundamental, of vital importance. It says that to the extent of this change, the philosophy [of the Holland Bill] was modified. Ante, p. 154. I find this altogether surprising, since when the change was introduced by Senator Holland himselfand adopted almost immediately without any opposition being voiced, he said it was just a minor change of verbiage, [49] one of several minor changes for the purpose of clarification. [50] If the change was to have the dramatic effect which the Court attributes to it, Senator Holland certainly did not recognize it, for he said that it did not depart in the slightest from the intention of the sponsors of the joint resolution. [51] This amendment along with others was adopted after discussion occupying less than two pages in the Congressional Record, without a roll-call vote, without even one single objection from the Senate floor. Fundamental changes in the basic purpose of bills are never adopted in that way. Senator Holland's explanation that this was just a minor change of verbiage should be accepted by this Court, as I have no doubt it was accepted by the Senate. This change which its sponsor thought was minor and which the Court thinks is fundamental, and on which the Court's whole argument depends, merely modified the definition of boundaries in § 2 of the Act by adding: but in no event shall the term `boundaries' or the term `lands beneath navigable waters' be interpreted as extending from the coast line more than three geographical miles into the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, or more than three marine leagues into the Gulf of Mexico. [52] The Court says that this language implicitly did away with the original and continued intention of the proponents of the bill to restore to the States the ownership of all submerged lands lying under all waters within their historic boundaries, wherever those boundaries lay, and instead established a rule that historic boundaries would not be honored if they extended more than three miles from the coastline, i. e., from the seaward edge of the inland waters as the Court today defines inland waters. The Court then reads the legislative history as destroying the historic definition of inland waterswhich is, of course, all waters within a State's boundaries exclusive of claims to marginal seaand substituting a very restrictive one based on this Court's decision in the California case, a reading which I have indicated above is, I think, flatly contrary to what the legislative history shows. The Court thus holds that by making two minor changes in the bill, which changes they said over and over again were of no substantive significance, the Senators supporting it silently repudiated in large measure their own intention, which they had proclaimed to the public and the Senate from the beginning and continued to proclaim to the end, of restoring to the States their historic constitutional boundaries. This three-mile or three-league limitation amendment was added for a very simple reason, which is plain in the Congressional Record and which shows that the sponsors of the bill were reaffirming rather than abandoning their basic original purpose in offering this and similar bills: they wished to restore to the States the submerged lands out to their historic boundaries, including three miles or leagues of marginal sea, but no farther. As reported from Committee, the bill gave the States submerged lands out to their boundaries at the time they entered the Union or as heretofore or hereafter approved by Congress without any limitation. It was feared by some that one or more of the States, none of which had ever claimed more than three miles (or leagues) of the marginal sea, might suddenly assert claims that their boundaries extended out hundreds of miles to the very limits of the Continental Shelf. [53] If allowed to do this, the fear was expressed, such States would be taking title to mineral wealth far beyond the historic boundaries to which the sponsors of the bill wished to confine them. The sponsors stated that their purpose was merely to restore to the States what they had thought they had had as boundariesthe outer part of the Continental Shelf was to belong to the Federal Government. [54] In order to prevent any States from trying to use the word boundaries in the Act to push their boundaries out beyond their historic three-mile or three-league claims to the marginal sea, Senator Holland himself introduced this amendment. It deleted the words or hereafter, thus limiting the States to any boundaries which they had previously claimed, in spite of any claims they might make in the future; and it also set forth as a limitation the Senators' understanding of the maximum extent of the marginal sea historically claimed by any State from or as a part of its historic boundaries: three geographical miles in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and three leagues in the Gulf of Mexico. As Senator Holland explained, a limitation to existing boundaries had been the intention of the bill's sponsors all along, and it had been and was the understanding of the sponsors that no States claimed that their historic boundaries extended more than three miles from their coastlines in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. He said the three-mile limitation was just a minor change of verbiage [55] made in order to make very clear that Congress at this time is seeking to do only those things which the authors and supporters of the joint resolution have so very fully, and rather repeatedly, stated for the RECORD heretofore during the course of the debate. [56] He reiterated that The amendment will simply indicate that this Senate, in the passage of the joint resolution, is certainly not inviting additional claims, and it knows of no additional claims.  [57] Senator Holland, as the record shows, and many other Senators were well aware of California's existing claim, which is now before us, and could not have considered it to be additional. [58] Time and time again the proponents of the bill stated before the amendment was passed that no State claimed more than three miles or leagues of marginal sea as part of its historic boundaries, and no State would be given rights by the bill beyond those original claims. Said Senator Holland, I emphasize the fact that this joint resolution does not extend the boundary of any State beyond the 3-mile limit. [59] Said Senator Daniel, again before the amendment: . . . those of us who are coauthors of this measure have always understood that it was not necessary to write into the pending legislation a specific provision that it shall not apply to lands beyond 3 miles, or 3 leagues, because all the States are claiming is 3 miles, except in the Gulf of Mexico where historic boundaries are 3 leagues from shore. [60] He added: I believe that the exchange here within the past few minutes should make it very clear that the authors of this measure are not trying to give to the States, or to restore to the States, any lands outside their historic boundaries. [61] The claims of the States to a belt of marginal waters of course did not determine the location of the coastline from which such a belt would be measured. California's historic coastline, it says, was the outer limit of the bays and islands. In limiting the States to their historic claims of three miles or three leagues from their coast lines, wherever those coast lines might be, Congress unquestionably, I think, was leaving totally undisturbed the validity of their historic claims to the boundaries from which those belts would be measured. The Court's opinion lays great stress on an opinion expressed by Senator Holland that California's claim that its historic boundary of inland waters and marginal sea extended out to and three miles beyond its offshore islands was not persuasive. The Court leaves the impression that Senator Holland made a ruling that California's claim would not be covered by the Act. In fact he did nothing of the kind, but merely expressed the opinion to opponents of the bill who said that restoring the States to their historic boundaries would give them too large an area of submerged lands and who cited California's claim to the channel as an example, that he thought California would have a difficult time in proving that its historic boundary extended so far. The context of Senator Holland's remarks is important to set out in full, since when read in context his opinion, which he later repeated on several occasions, serves to emphasize that he intended that each State be allowed to prove where its historic boundaries lay, which is all that California is asking that it be allowed to do here, and which is what the Court now denies it. The exchange began when Senator Long of Louisiana asked Senator Holland about how far seaward Louisiana's boundary would extend under the bill. Senator Long said: Now, if I understand correctly, the Senator is not proposing that the actual determination of exactly what was the historic boundary at the time Louisiana came into the Union be decided by the Congress, but rather that the question of the historic boundary of the State might be one still subject to actual judicial determination. Senator HOLLAND. Of course, the Senator is right. ..... Senator HOLLAND. We cannot draft general legislation that will still every possible legal question. [62] Senator Anderson of New Mexico then asked Senator Holland whether the bill validated the claim of California that its historic boundary extended to the offshore islands with a three-mile belt of marginal sea beyond them. To this Senator Holland replied: The Senator from Florida can only give his opinion, and in his opinion it would not, because of the great depths of the water that exist between the coastline of California and the extrusions from the sea bottom which appear out there, and some of which are above the level of the water. Again, though, the Senator from Florida states that that would be a matter, naturally, on which the courts would be asked to rule. We are not going to find any formula that displaces the function of the courts to go into cases and find which cases come within the general doctrine announced by legislation and which fall without that legislation. [63] In other words, the bill did not settle definitively the question of fact as to whether California's historic boundary was to be measured from the outer rim of the islands. That was a question on which courts would have to hear evidence and then decide according to the general doctrine announced by [this] legislationthe doctrine, as Senator Holland and others repeated so many times, that the States were to be restored to their historic boundaries. And as he said in summary, there was nothing in his bill which would diminish California's claim to the waters and submerged lands around its offshore islands. [64] In later referring to the adoption of Senator Holland's amendment to the bill, Senator Daniel of Texas said, the intention was to write specifically into the joint resolution what the authors have said all along would be its effectthat it covered only land within the historic boundaries. [65] As a further indication that the three-miles-from-coastline amendment was not intended to affect States' claims to their historic boundaries, the record shows that opponents of the bill subsequently tried to amend it to restrict the line from which the three-mile limits would be measured, and failed. Senator Douglas of Illinois, a leader of the opposition, proposed an amendment which would have changed the definition of coast line in the bill so that the three miles would be measured only from the main continent, and separately around any islands, thus cutting off California's claim to the submerged lands between the islands and the mainland, which is largely the issue before us now. Senator Douglas indicated specifically that his proposed amendment was intended to destroy California's claim to those submerged lands, and that he had warned Senator Kuchel of California of his intention to introduce it. [66] Senator Long of Louisiana objected that the Senator from Illinois is submitting his own definition of inland waters. [67] Senator Douglas' amendment was defeated, [68] and California's historic claims, for whatever they might prove to be worth, were left, as Senator Holland had stated, undiminished. I think that this review of the relevant hearings and debates in the Senate makes clear three things: (1) As originally proposed, the bill was intended to restore to the States title to submerged lands within their historic boundaries, whatever those might prove to be. (2) The removal of the explicit definition of inland waters, far from being, as the Court views it, fundamental, was not a change of substance [69] and was not done in any manner to prejudice the rights of the States; [70] it was intended merely to avoid possible embarrassment in the field of international relations from a bill which had nothing to do with international relations or international law, being merely a transfer of title. [71] (3) The addition of the limitation of boundaries to three miles beyond the coastline, far from being, as the Court views it, fundamental, was just a minor change of verbiage [72] intended to make clear what the bill's sponsors had intended all along: that the bill was not designed to allow States in the future to push their boundaries out to the limits of the Continental Shelf, but rather to limit them to everything within their historic boundaries, including historic coastlines and historic three-mile or three-league claims to the marginal sea beyond. Near the conclusion of the debates on the bill Senator Holland in explaining its purpose used these words, which I do not think show any fundamental or even perceptible changes or modifications of philosophy from those he had used in his first speech on the bill: The truth is that Senate Joint Resolution 13 simply restores or gives back to the States the submerged lands within their historic boundaries which they have possessed, used and developed in good faith for over 100 years. . . . ..... . . . It would write the law for the future as it was believed to exist in the past by restoring to the States all lands beneath navigable waters within their historic boundaries. [73]