bers of the California delegation in Congress, I can do no other than to insist upon the truth that has come to me in my study of this problem. Since I became embroiled, as an innocent bystander, in this investigation, I sometimes receive a hundred letters a day from California, enclosing clippings from the oil journals and the press out there, and with rare exceptions, the word "steal" is applied to the Nye resolution and to mine. The most polite term that they use with respect to these resolutions is "grab," which is the same word that we now apply to Hitler's rape of the Czechs. I wish to say now what I said to a gentleman of the Fourth Estate on the day that I introduced this bill, that it seems to me if California so vehemently resents the intrusion, or this proposed intrusion, of the Federal Government into offshore waters littoral to California, she would be compelled by the force of her own logic, to insist that all intrusion by the Federal Government into those waters cease-and that we might remedy the wrong that we have done her by own intrusion, which would mean that they should insist on our blowing up the seawall that the Federal Government built in the ocean off their coast, within the 3-mile zone, and take our Navy and its personnel and get out. I maintain that this is the logical conclusion of their argument, because if we have no business in offshore waters for one constitutional purpose, then we have no business there for any purpose. I submit that California is not the object of any spleen of mine or of any one else's. We wish to grease the wheel that is squeaking; we wish to stop the pinching of the shoe where it is pinching. Off California thousands of barrels of oil are being taken every day from submerged lands underlying the territorial waters of the Nation. More than 80 companies are engaged in such exploitation there. There are no extensive drilling operations in any of the territorial waters of the United States anywhere else on its whole coastline, the country round. Therefore, it is logical that we begin with California. But whether that be logical or not, I wish to assert again, as positively as I know how, that I do not think that this resolution should be limited to California alone. I do not wish to be understood as taking the position that the United States should fail to assert its claim of right to conserve, take, and use oil under its territorial waters anywhere. I think we should assert such claim everywhere. My first resolution did so. But when I could not get that favorably reported, I took what I could get. The present resolution is the result of that compromise. It claims the oil in the bed of the ocean off California, for the maintenance of the Navy, national defense, and the protection and regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. Now, I wish to make this observation, that so far as I am concerned, my sole zeal in this matter comes from a sincere desire to clear my own conscience, and as best I may, keep my own skirts clean. I will not be a party to another Teapot Dome oil scandal! The value of the oil off the California shore line, under the territorial waters of the United States, is estimated variously at from 2 to 5 billion dollars. It is where the Navy needs it, and you know I speak the truth! The plane that bombed the Panay and sunk her, was motored with fuel taken from this subocean oil deposit. Certainly the vast bulk of the oil being abstracted here is being sold to Japan. Japan may have just as much right to buy it as any other purchaser, but we ought to save every drop of it for our own national need. We need that oil, as the naval oil office will tell you and did tell you last year. And we need it there on the Pacific coast. Mr. WALTER. May I interrupt there? Mr. HOBBS. Certainly. Mr. WALTER. Before you develop your argument with respect to the legal title, I wonder if you would be good enough to yield so that Senator Connally may make his statement? I notice that he is present. Senator CONNALLY. Mr. Chairman, I prefer that the gentleman proceed. I can arrange my time to his convenience. Mr. HOBBS. I shall be delighted to yield. Senator CONNALLY. No; please proceed with your presentation. Mr. HOBBS. Now, the next few minutes I want to devote to the burning up of some straw men. The first one of these is the tideland bogey. There could be no tideland touched under this resolution. Tidelands are definitely out, and yet we cannot seem to convince our friends from California of that fact. I received a letter from Long Beach, the Long Beach Realty Board, this morning, under the seal of that organization, frantically protesting against this resolution. Their argument is based upon this predicate: It has been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court of the United States that the tidelands and submerged lands lying within the boundaries of any State of the Union belong to that State by virtue of its sovereignty. I echo that statement. That is the truth. We are in agreement on that. There is no quarrel there, that tide and submerged lands, within the limits of any State, have been held, in the sense in which the court was speaking in particular cases, to belong to the States. We are not shooting at tidelands. We begin where tideland ends. We expressly begin where shore and water meet, at low-water mark, and go out into the ocean. I see my good friend, John Tolan, who is one of the ablest lawyers and best Members of this House, the most diligent servant of his constituency and of all the people of California, even he, in this regard, when he came to prepare the minority report of this committee, last year, referred to tidelands, all the way through his minority report. We are not shooting at tidelands and anyone who bases his argument on that false assumption is just simply not sticking to the issues. Another amusing element in this case, so it appears to me, is the insistence of our friends of the port authorities all around the coast that they may be questioned or interfered with in their rightful possession and operation of their improvements. We specifically say that any vested right in any one is to be respected, and that our claim is asserted subject to all and any vested rights. This resolution asserts no claim about low-water mark, thereby excluding from its field of contemplation all river and harbor improvements. I want to submit to you that even if the worst were true-now, understand, I do not say there is any ground for fear; but even if the worst fears of the port authorities were true-and my deliberate judgment is that they are unfounded, I am sure they would not be disturbed in their possession or use in the slightest degree. This committee, in the boundary-line dispute, involving much the same question, between Virginia and the District of Columbia, did not disturb the Ford assembly plant at Alexandria or any other of those other improvements along the water front which might have been disturbed theoretically. No one seriously questions, as far as I have heard, the right of the port authorities to remain in complete possession of their facilities and to use them to the full, without hindrance. This resolution is aimed at the petroleum deposits under the bed of the ocean. This petroleum could be taken, just as it is being taken now-not by drilling straight down, but by "whipstocking." To "whipstock" means to drill off center so that the course of penetration runs off at a tangent from the perpendicular. In this way the petroleum deposit or oil pool may be tapped at a great distance laterally from where the drilling began. Now, mark you, if their worst fears were realized, and if the courts should hold that the port authorities have no title whatsoever, still, to all practical intents and purposes, they would function exactly as before. Mr. MURDOCK. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question at this point? The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hobbs, when we do ask you questions, if they interfere with your presentation, I wish you would indicate so. Mr. HOBBS. Not a bit, Judge. I have been practicing law nearly a hundred years, and I have never gotten started good before somebody on the other side would say, "I object." So I think when gentlemen are as gracious as you are here, and ask the chairman for permission to interrupt, I am especially favored. Mr. MURDOCK. Our colleague has mentioned vested rights, and I am just wondering if you are going to develop the theory I am perfectly willing to wait but I was wondering if you include there in your statement with reference to vested rights, an applicant who has applied to the Secretary of the Interior for a drilling permit; what his status is in the event this resolution is adopted, and in the event that the courts might hold that title to the oil is in the United States? If that is going to be developed later, I am perfectly willing to wait. Mr. HOBBS. Yes; I am coming to that; and if you will permit me, I will not take it out of turn. Mr. WALTER. Mr. Hobbs, do you contend that there can be any rights vested as against the sovereign? Mr. HOBBS. I would say this in answer to that question, Mr. Chairman, that, of course, adverse possession, the rule of repose and such rules of the law do not apply against the sovereign. Nothing runs against the sovereign that would create a simple bar. But I take the position in this case that under the authority of Gilman v. Philadelphia, the rights of the Federal Government lie dormant until called into action by appropriate resolution of Congress. Under the Gilman case the Nation has no rights which may be exercised until Congress acts. Until the dormant power of the Constitution is awakened and made effective by appropriate legislation, the reserved power of the States is plenary. I do not hold the opinion that against those dormant rights adverse possession would run, but, repeatedly, it has been recognized in practice that those who built and spent their money in bona fide pursuit of their business along our shores, acquired rights that would not be disturbed, whether theoretically they might have been disturbed or not. And within sight of our Nation's Capitol we have demonstrated that fact, in the determination and agreement reached in the boundary line dispute between Virginia and the District of Columbia. The CHAIRMAN. Do you draw a distinction, or does the decision draw a distinction, with reference to the rights of the Government, whatever they may be, in the dry land and in the lands that are submerged? Mr. HOBBS. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You will discuss that before you finish? Mr. HOBBS. Yes, sir. The next point I want to make is that this resolution is not retroactive. There are a good many of these people who are drilling out there whose lawyers have advised them, so they have told me, that they are utterly without authority to abstract the oil from these petroleum deposits. And what they are worried about is that the Government may be seeking, under the cloak of this resolution, to recover damages from them for the abstraction of oil heretofore. My logic leads me to the same conclusion that I announced with regard to the other matter. This power of the Federal Government under its sovereignty is dormant until awakened by action of the Congress. Therefore I do not think that it would be fair, even though it might be legal, to seek to recover damages for the oil taken before the claim of the Nation thereto had been asserted. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hobbs, in order for us to get a clear view of your position, do you say that there are no exceptions to the rule that the Federal Government's authority in this 3-mile zone may not be exercised with regard to anything until directed to proceed by an act of Congress? Mr. HOBBS. No, sir; I would not say that at all. I think that is true only as to the dormant rights and powers. It was recognized long ago, in the case of Ogden v. Gibbons, and probably before, that as to action of the Nation Government under the granted powers, clearly contemplated when the constitutional powers were granted, there never has been and is now no need whatever for additional authorization. But congressional action is necessary to enable the Federal Government to act in new, unanticipated ways. While the national sovereignty and specific powers granted by the sovereign States in the Constitution of the United States are full and complete, nevertheless, novel applications of the powers inherent in national sovereignty or of the powers otherwise granted, which become necessary or desirable because of scientific discovery or invention, must be authorized by Congress before they may be properly employed. The CHAIRMAN. What is the reason that suggests itself to your judgment or that is assigned by the decision why it is that if the Federal Government has that which it can possess under the direction of Congress, the ordinary protective agencies of the Government may not proceed to protect the interest of the Government without such an act of Congress? Mr. HOBBS. I am so delighted that you asked that question. Mr. HOBBS. That ran through Your Honor's mind during the hearings last year. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. HOBBS. And at that time I was not able to answer it from the vantage point of an exhaustive study of the authorities such as I have since made. At that time I gave my saddle bag opinion. Now I am reenforced in the opinion I then expressed by the authorities. The CHAIRMAN. Don't let me interrupt the orderly line of your presentation. Mr. HOBBS. That is a point I was coming to, Mr. Chairman. I believe that I will impinge upon my brief just to this extent: There are only three departments of this Government, or three branches the executive, judicial, and legislative. If a right under the Constitution is to be claimed for all the people of the United States, it must be claimed by one of those. The primary power of the executive department is to execute the law. The primary power of the judicial branch of this Government is to interpret the law and to enforce it. The primary function of the legislative branch of this Government is to make the law and such declarations of public policy as from time to time may, in its judgment, be necessary in behalf of all the sovereign people. Therefore, inasmuch as you are limited to one of those three branches of the Government to assert this claim, it must be done inevitably by that branch which has as its exclusive function the making of the law and the declarations of public policy. Now, that is not an entire answer to your question. The CHAIRMAN. No. Mr. HOBBS. I am continuing my answer, Your Honor. The CHAIRMAN. I agree fully with my distinguished colleague on that point, but I have had a notion, without having examined it, that there is some general obligation resting upon the executive agencies of the Government to protect the property and public rights of the Government without the direction of the Congress. Mr. HOBBS. I just indicated that what I have already said was merely a preliminary observation. That was not my answer to your question. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, I beg your pardon. Mr. HOBBS. I am coming to "the milk in the coconut" now. As to all rights patently granted, in so many words, in the Constitution, there is no need for the assertion of any claim of right to act thereunder, and, therefore, no such claim as that need be asserted. The CHAIRMAN. You mean there is a duty already resting upon the executive agencies of the Government to protect the property of the Government and the governmental rights? Mr. HOBBS. Yes, sir; with respect to property owned by the Government, and rights granted in such a way as to require no further enabling act. The CHAIRMAN. The rights of the Federal Government that everybody recognizes. Mr. HOBBS. Exactly. But even in plain cases Congress has passed enabling acts, some directory and limiting, others without purpose. I do not conceive that any of such acts of Congress were necessary. What are the constitutional powers which were delegated and granted by the sovereign States, who, after the Revolution, had all the rights formerly belonging to the Crown, in order to form "a more perfect Union"? They are very brief. National sovereignty for the common defense and the general welfare; the right to levy taxes; to collect imposts and duties, which necessitated the patrolling of this 3-mile zone; to build and maintain a navy; and to regulate and protect interstate and foreign commerce. |