6 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



. . . the most important aspect of the 

 Reagan Proclamation is its ceremonial 

 declaration that the resources within the 

 EEZ, . . . are declared to be held in trust 

 by the U.S. Government for the Amer- 

 ican people. 



Extension of U.S. control over the resources 

 within the 200-mile EEZ in 1983 actually added— 

 for practical purposes — litde additional area to that 

 already under the control of the United States. The 

 U.S. and other coastal countries already had as- 

 serted control over fish within a 200-mile zone (un- 

 der the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Man- 

 agement Act of 1976' and over other resources 

 located on the continental shelves. This extended 

 control over resources can be traced to the Tru- 

 man Proclamation of 1945, in which President 

 Harry Truman declared that the United States as- 

 serted exclusive control and jurisdiction over the 

 natural resources of the seabed and the subsoil of 

 the continental shelf. ^ Many believe this proclama- 

 tion was responsible for a flurry of new maritime 

 claims. Following the proclamation, for instance, 

 Chile, Peru, and Ecuador claimed sovereignty and 

 jurisdiction out to 200 miles^ and considered the 

 200-mile zone to be wholly under their national con- 

 trol for all ocean uses except innocent passage of 

 ships. Various other claims, but none quite so ex- 

 tensive, were asserted by other countries in the wake 

 of the Truman Proclamation. 



The United States implemented the Truman 

 Proclamation by passage of the Outer Continen- 

 tal Shelf Lands Act in 1953. This act authorizes 

 leasing of minerals in the continental shelf beyond 



'Pubic Law 94-265 as amended. The Fishery Conservation and 

 Management Zone extends seaward from the 3-mile State-controlled 

 Territorial Sea and is contiguous with the EEZ. The seaward bound- 

 aries of Texas, Puerto Rico, and the gulf coast of Florida extend 9 

 nautical miles; all other States have a 3-mile seaward boundary. 



"Executive Proclamation No. 2667; 59 Stat. 884 (1945). 



'L. Alexander, "The Ocean Enclosure Movement: Inventory and 

 Prospect," San Diego Law Review, vol. 20, No. 3, 1983, p. 564. 



the State-controlled territorial sea.'" The unilateral 

 action of the United States in extending jurisdic- 

 tion over the petroleum-rich continental shelf led 

 to an international agreement in 1958 (see box 1- 

 B). As a result, all coastal nations acquired the 

 rights to explore and exploit natural resources 

 within the continental shelves adjacent to their 

 coasts." 



The area of the U.S. continentcd shelf is esti- 

 mated to be approximately 1 .6 million square nau- 

 tical miles. Thus, a substantial proportion of the 

 area of the recently proclaimed EEZ has been un- 

 der the jurisdiction of the United States since 1945; 

 mineral leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf has 

 been authorized since 1953; and fisheries have been 

 managed within the 200-mile Fishery Conservation 

 and Management Zone since 1976. Hence, only 

 mineral deposits in areas within 200 miles of the 

 coast but beyond the continental shelf edge — the 

 least accessible part of the EEZ — have been added 

 to the resource base of the United States with the 

 establishment of the new EEZ. 



President Ronald Reagan's establishment of an 

 Exclusive Economic Zone in 1983 kindled interest 

 in the exploration of the "newly acquired" offshore 

 province. Some likened the creation of the EEZ to 

 the Louisiana Purchase. Others called for an EEZ 

 exploratory venture akin to Lewis and Clark's ex- 

 ploration of the Northwest or John Wesley Powell's 

 geological reconnaissance of the western territories 

 in the 1800s. Perhaps the most important aspect 

 of the Reagan Proclamation is its ceremonial decla- 

 ration that the resources within the EEZ, whether 

 on the seafloor or in the water column, whether liv- 

 ing or non-living, whether hydrocarbons or hard 

 minerals, are declared to be held in trust by the 

 U.S. Government for the American people. 



'"Public Law 83-212, 67 Stat. 462 (1953), 43 U.S.C. 1331-1356; 

 as amended Public Law 95-372, 92 Stat. 629 (1978), 43 U.S.C. 

 1801-1806. 



"1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf (UNCLOS I), 15 UST 

 471; TIAS 5578, 



