State of Alaska v. United States of America
In 2000, the Supreme Court permitted the State of Alaska to file a complaint against the United States. Alaska's complaint asked the Court to quiet title to vast expanses of marine submerged lands under the authority of the Quiet Title Act of 1972. The submerged lands are located in the area of the Alexander Archipelago, near southeastern Alaska. This area includes over 1,000 islands and is larger than many states. Alaska's claims to the land rest on the Equal Footing doctrine and the Submerged Lands Act of 1953. The Equal Footing doctrine provides that new states enter the Union having the same sovereign powers and jurisdiction as the original thirteen states. Under this doctrine, a new state generally acquires title to the beds of inland navigable waters. The Submerged Lands Act of 1953 declares that states generally have title to all lands beneath inland navigable waters and beneath offshore marine waters within their “boundaries,” which generally extend three miles from the coastline. Under both the Equal Footing doctrine and the Submerged Lands Act, the United States may prevent title to submerged lands from passing to a state at statehood by expressly retaining title to the lands.
Alaska filed an amended complaint. Counts I and II claim that title to the submerged lands located within certain inland waters, or within three nautical miles seaward of the limits of these inland waters, passed to Alaska under the Equal Footing doctrine and Submerged Lands Act. Count IV claims that the United States did not reserve or retain submerged lands located within the boundaries of the Glacier Bay National Monument. In 2004, the Special Master submitted a report recommending, in part, that the Supreme Court grant summary judgment to the United States on counts I, II and IV.
Questions Presented:
1. The Court should decline to adopt the Special Master's recommendation that the United States be granted summary judgment on Count IV of the Amended
Complaint. See Report at 227-276. Instead, the Court should grant summary judgment to Alaska on Count IV because, inter alia, the plain language of Section 6(e) of the Alaska Statehood Act does not
express the requisite unambiguous intent of Congress to reserve for the United States submerged lands within the boundaries of the Glacier Bay National Monument, but rather expressly applies only
to a narrow subset of other lands that are indisputably not at issue here.
2. The Court should decline to adopt the Special Master's recommendation that the United States be granted summary judgment on Count I of the Amended Complaint. See Report at 9-137. Instead, the
Court should grant summary judgment to Alaska on Count I because the undisputed historical record demonstrates that the United States continuously exercised sovereignty over the waters of the
Alexander Archipelago with the acquiescence of foreign nations, and the Nation's vital interests support a finding of historic waters status.
3. The Court should decline to adopt the Special Master's recommendation that the United States be granted summary judgment on Count II of the Amended Complaint. See Report at 138-226. Instead, the
Court should grant summary judgment to Alaska on Count II as to the areas referred to as North Bay and South Bay because the undisputed record demonstrates that the areas qualify as juridical bays
under Article 7 of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, and the assimilation principles adopted and applied by this Court in United States v. Maine, 469 U.S. 504 (1986).
Decision under Review:
Report of the Special Master (March 30, 2004)
