SCHOOL LANDS—Continued INDEMNITY SELECTIONS—Continued 2. Where the Geological Survey classifies both selected and base lands in 4. The date as of which the determination is to be made whether public 5. As a result of the general withdrawals accomplished by Executive Orders Nos. 6910 and 6964 and the provisions of section 7 of the Taylor Grazing Act, a State's application for indemnity school lands is a petition to classify the lands as suitable for State selection and until classification the lands are not available for selection____ 6. School land indemnity selections for lands within the known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field, unless the lost lands are similarly situated, or for lands in a producing or producible lease, must be rejected, and the date of determination as to whether the selected lands are in the known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field or are in a producing or producible lease is the date when the State has complied with all requirements for making a selection--- 7. The phrase "known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field" has been so long understood to include oil and gas fields which once produced and are still capable of production, although not currently producing, that the phrase as used in Rev. Stat. 2276(a)(2) will be considered to have the same meaning, despite the fact that the word "producing" is used in the next paragraph of the statute to mean actual production___. 8. Land in any lease of a unit agreement which is in a participating area is to be considered as land in a producing or producible status so that all lands subject to that lease, whether in the unit or participating area, are not eligible for selection by a State as school indemnity lands_--- 9. If a State offers mineral land as base for an indemnity selection of land which is both valuable for oil shale and valuable for oil or gas and is situated within the known geologic structure of a producing oil or gas field (and the base land is not so situated) or is included in a producing or producible oil and gas lease, the State may obtain the selected land, including the oil shale deposits, upon consenting to a reservation to the United States of the oil and gas in the selected land------. Page 49 49 392 392 393 393 393 393 SCHOOL LANDS—Continued MINERAL LANDS 1. Since sections 2275 and 2276 of the Revised Statutes, as amended, 4. The date as of which the determination is to be made whether public 5. As a result of the general withdrawals accomplished by Executive Orders Nos. 6910 and 6964 and the provisions of section 7 of the Taylor Grazing Act, a State's application for indemnity school lands is a petition to classify the lands as suitable for State selection and until classification the lands are not available for selection 6. School land indemnity selections for lands within the known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field, unless the lost lands are similarly situated, or for lands in a producing or producible lease, must be rejected, and the date of determination as to whether the selected lands are in the known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field or are in a producing or producible lease is the date when the State has complied with all requirements for making a selection_____. 7. The phrase "known geologic structure of a producing oil and gas field" has been so long understood to include oil and gas fields which once produced and are still capable of production, although not currently producing, that the phrase as used in Rev. Stat. 2276 (a) (2) will be considered to have the same meaning, despite the fact that the word “producing" is used in the next paragraph of the statute to mean actual production__. 8. Land in any lease of a unit agreement which is in a participating area is to be considered as land in a producing or producible status so that all lands subject to that lease, whether in the unit or participating area, are not eligible for selection by a State as school indemnity lands_-_-_ Page 49 49 49 392 392 393 393 393 SCHOOL LANDS—Continued 9. If a State offers mineral land as base for an indemnity selection of land which is both valuable for oil shale and valuable for oil or gas and is situated within the known geologic structure of a producing oil or gas field (and the base land is not so situated) or is included in a producing or producible oil and gas lease, the State may obtain the selected land, including the oil shale deposits, upon consenting to a reservation to the United States of the oil and gas in the selected land.. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 1. The authority to regulate hunting and fishing on Federally owned land has been delegated to the Secretary of the Interior by specific legislation SMALL TRACT ACT CLASSIFICATION 1. Land embraced in unpatented mining claims which display no indications of abandonment is properly classified as not suitable for small tract purposes__. STATE EXCHANGES GENERALLY 1. Where after an application for a State exchange is filed it appears that the selected lands are covered by apparently valid mining claims, the State, if it denies the validity of the claims, is to be allowed a hearing on the issue of whether or not the claims are valid STATE LAWS 1. A protest by a junior offeror in a drawing of simultaneously filed oil and gas lease offers which charges disqualification of a senior offeror because the senior offeror is married to another offeror so that neither was actually the sole party in interest in the separate offers filed is properly dismissed in the absence of any proof that either of the two offerors in question was not acting in his own behalf and that under the law of the State in which the land applied for lies a married person cannot hold or acquire property for his sole benefit without the other spouse's consent-- STATE SELECTIONS 1. State selections in satisfaction of a legislative grant of public land are preferred over conflicting private applications even though the State application may have been filed subsequent to the private application if the interval between the two filings is not so great as to indicate that the State failed to exercise reasonable diligence in exercising its selection right‒‒‒‒‒ 2. The filing of a State selection application within six weeks after the filing of public sale applications for the same land evidences reasonable diligence by the State in the exercise of its selection right so that the State application merits consideration with the public sale applications and allowance unless such allowance would serve the public interest less effectively than allowance of the public sale applications--- Page 393 469 199 199 121 126 127 STATE SELECTIONS—Continued 3. The statutory grant of a 6-month preference period for the filing of State selection applications after every revocation of a withdrawl of public land within 10 years after August 27, 1958, is entirely consistent with the existent departmental policy of permitting the public interest in the satisfaction of a legislative grant of public land to a State to tip the scales in favor of the State in the Department's consideration of a State selection application and a conflicting application for the initiation of private rights in the land - 4. The period of delay in the filing of a State selection application by which the diligence of a State in exercising its selection right is measured runs from the time an application for the acquisition of private rights in public land is filed until the State selection application is filed____ STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION GENERALLY 1. While both the Indian Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, and the Alaska Allotment Act, 34 Stat. 197, as amended, 70 Stat. 954, are representative of the method which was used to grant land to "uncivilized" persons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the specific requirements of the numerous allotment statutes enacted during that time vary according to the particular situations which they were intended to meet and the two acts should not be read in pari materia to impose identical requirements on applicants under each statute___ 2. The effect of the enactment of Departmental regulations in the 1956 amendment to the Alaska Allotment Act, 70 Stat. 954, was to make mandatory under the statute the determination of use and occupancy which, prior to the 1956 amendment, had been discretionary except where the claim of a preference right was involved, but the amendment did not bind the Department to the exclusive consideration of the specific elements of proof which, though listed in the regulations, were not made a part of the amendment 3. Where a federal statute provides that the reclamation laws shall govern the construction, operation, and management of project works, the excess land provisions of the reclamation laws are thereby carried into effect unless the terms of the statute provide otherwise____. 4. The language of section 1 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act (45 Stat. 1057; 43 U.S.C. sec. 617) does not by its plain terms create or recognize a water right----- 5. Where Congress has deemed it proper to waive or modify the excess land laws in certain projects, it has always found it appropriate to enact positive legislation setting forth the exemption or other modification in unmistakable terms___ Page 127 127 340 341 496 497 498 6. Statutes which grant privileges or relinquish rights of the public are to be strictly construed against the grantee_-. 498 STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION-Continued ADMINISTRATIVE CONSTRUCTION 1. The departmental regulation, currently found at 43 CFR 230.70, which provides that section 5 of the Act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat. 388, 389; 43 U.S.C. sec. 431), does not prevent the recognition of a vested water right for more than 160 acres and the protection of same by allowing the continued flowing of the water covered by the right through works constructed by the Government under appropriate regulations and charges, applies only to special situations where existing physical facilities or water rights are acquired under the authority of section 10 of the 1902 Act (32 Stat. 389, 390; 43 U.S.C. sec. 373) for incorporation in a project and where the lands to which the water right appertains are not included within that project. This regulations was intended as a codification of the Opinion of Assistant Attorney General, 34 L.D. 351 (January 6, 1906) –– LEGISLATIVE HISTORY 1. The legislative history of section 2(f) of the Bonneville Project Act as amended on October 23, 1945 (59 Stat. 546, 16 U.S.C. 832a (f)), expresses an intent on the part of Congress to authorize the Bonneville Power Administrator to conduct his affairs in a matter which equates his authority with that of private business enterprises 2. The legislative history of the Boulder Canyon Project Act (45 Stat. 1057, 1066; 43 U.S.C. secs. 617-617t) does not reveal that Congress intended to exempt, by implication or otherwise, the private lands within Imperial Valley from the federal excess land laws‒‒‒‒‒ SUBMERGED LANDS ACT 1. The Departmental decision in Henry S. Morgan, Floyd A. Wallis, 3. Lands which are "made" as that term is used in section 2(a)(3) of 4. The Submerged Lands Act (act of May 22, 1953, c. 65, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U.S.C. 1301-1315) relinquished any former title of the United States to lands naturally made as islands, which formerly were "lands beneath navigable waters," as that phrase is defined in the act. Title to accretions to public lands of the United States was not affected by the act--‒‒‒ 5. The ruling of the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior in the case of Floyd A. Wallis (BLM-A-036376), as affirmed by the Secretary of the Interior (65 I.D. 369 (1958)), to the contrary is erroneous and should be revoked_. |