Cite as: 521 U. S. 1 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
leases for offshore exploration and to share in oil and gas revenues from the contested lands.
Several general principles govern our analysis of the parties' claims. Ownership of submerged lands—which carries with it the power to control navigation, fishing, and other public uses of water—is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U. S. 193, 195 (1987). Under the doctrine of Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 228-229 (1845), new States are admitted to the Union on an "equal footing" with the original 13 Colonies and succeed to the United States' title to the beds of navigable waters within their boundaries. Although the United States has the power to divest a future State of its equal footing title to submerged lands, we do not "lightly infer" such action. Utah Div. of State Lands, supra, at 197.
In United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947) (California I), we distinguished between submerged lands located shoreward of the low-water line along the State's coast and submerged lands located seaward of that line. Only lands shoreward of the low-water line—that is, the periodically submerged tidelands and inland navigable waters—pass to a State under the equal footing doctrine. The original 13 Colonies had no right to lands seaward of the coastline, and newly created States therefore cannot claim them on an equal footing rationale. Id., at 30-33. Accordingly, the United States has paramount sovereign rights in submerged lands seaward of the low-water line. Id., at 33-36. In 1953, following the California I decision, Congress enacted the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq. That Act "confirmed" and "established" States' title to and interest in "lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States." § 1311(a). The Act defines "lands beneath navigable waters" to include both lands that would ordinarily pass to a State under the equal footing doctrine and lands over which the United States has paramount sovereign rights, beneath a 3-mile belt of the ter-
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