448 



trol of which by the United States is hereby confirmed.'' Despite this 

 confirmation, the lack of definition and the uncertainty about the his- 

 torical boundaries of the States once again led to litigation. 



Relative to the continental shelf beyond the undefined inland waters, 

 that is, beyond the seaward boundaries, the Submerged Lands Act also 

 omitted any provision for the administration of the seabed and the 

 subsoil and the natural resources thereof. 



On the same day of the issuance of the Truman Proclamation 

 (September •!£. 1945). the President issued an Executive Order 

 reserving and placing certain resources of the continental shelf under 

 the control and jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior. A few 

 months before passage of the Submerged Lands Act, on January 16, 

 1953, President Truman issued another Executive Order setting aside 

 submerged lands of the continental shelf as a naval petroleum reserve. 

 This action concerned particularly oil and gas, and revoked the former 

 Executive Order by transferring the jurisdiction from the Secretary 

 of the Interior to the Secretary of the Navy. The main thrust of the 

 Order provided that — 



* * * the lands of the continental shelf of the United States and Alaska 

 lying seaward of the line of mean low tide and outside the inland waters and 

 extending to the furthermost limits of the paramount rights, full dominion, 

 and power of the United States over lands of the continental shelf are hereby 

 set aside as a naval petroleum reserve and shall be administered by the Secre- 

 tary of the Navy. 



This Executive Order prevailed until revoked a few months later by 

 the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. 



THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF LANDS ACT OF 1953 



The Truman Proclamation asserted the rights of the United States 

 on the basis of the geologic unity of the continental shelf with the ad- 

 jacent continent. Although the Proclamation did not establish an 

 official width for the shelf, the accompanying news release set the 

 limit at 100 fathoms (600 feet). These rights were given statutory 

 weight by the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, but the continental 

 shelf as a whole remained vague and undefined. 



The Submerged Lands Act defined the width of the shelf to be be- 

 tween the base line at low water and the three-mile seaward limit of the 

 territorial sea. This zone was therefore considered to be the inner 

 continental shelf. The rest of the continental shelf, seaward of the 

 territorial waters, was then referred to as the outer continental shelf. 

 The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act was signed as Public Law 

 212 on August 7. L953. The main thrust of the Act was to provide for 

 the administration of the resources of this area. It vested this author- 

 ity in the Secretary <>f the Interior, revoking the previous Executive 

 ( )rder which had set this area aside as a naval petroleum reserve under 

 t he administ ration of the Secretary of the Navy. 



In its declaration of policy the Act provided "that the subsoil and 

 seabed of the outer Continental Shelf appertain to the United States 

 and are subject to its jurisdiction, control and power of disposition 



