50
Opinion of the Court
neath tidelands and inland navigable waters—which would ordinarily pass to Alaska under the equal footing doctrine as confirmed by the Submerged Lands Act—and submerged lands beneath the territorial sea—which would pass to Alaska only by virtue of its Submerged Lands Act grant. As discussed supra, at 35-36, Congress has chosen in the Submerged Lands Act to exercise its paramount authority over submerged lands beneath the territorial sea by granting such lands to a coastal State, unless the Federal Government "expressly retained" the lands in question when the State entered the Union. 43 U. S. C. § 1313(a); see § 1301(a). Applying the logic of Montana and Utah Div. of State Lands, therefore, we ask whether the United States clearly included submerged lands within the Range and intended to defeat state title to such lands. If it did, the United States will have demonstrated that it "expressly retained" the coastal submerged lands at issue in this case, including tide-lands and lands beneath the territorial sea.
B
The Master examined the legal effect of the 1957 application in one section of his Report and applied the analysis of Montana and Utah Div. of State Lands in another. These inquiries overlap significantly, as the Government's argument makes clear. The Government claims that the 1957 Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife application reflected the United States' clear intent to include submerged lands within the proposed Range, satisfying the first inquiry under Utah Div. of State Lands. As for the second inquiry, the Government argues that the United States expressly retained all lands within the Range, including submerged lands, with § 6(e) of the Alaska Statehood Act. That subsection prevented the transfer to Alaska of any lands "set apart" as a refuge. The Government maintains that the legal effect of the 1957 application was to "set apart" the Range as a refuge. If so, the Government argues, § 6(e) reflects a clear
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