Cite as: 521 U. S. 1 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
neath the territorial sea to Alaska at statehood, unless the United States clearly withheld submerged lands within either category prior to statehood. In § 6(e) of the State-hood Act, Congress clearly contemplated continued federal ownership of certain submerged lands—both inland submerged lands and submerged lands beneath the territorial sea—so long as those submerged lands were among those "withdrawn or otherwise set apart as refuges or reservations for the protection of wildlife."
Under Montana and Utah Div. of State Lands, an intent to defeat state title to submerged lands must be clear. As this discussion illustrates, the operative provision of the Alaska Statehood Act, § 6(e), reflects a very clear intent to defeat state title. The only remaining question is whether an application by the head of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, upon which the Secretary of the Interior had not yet acted, had the effect of "withdraw[ing] or otherwise set[ting] apart" lands within the proposed Range "as refuges or reservations for the protection of wildlife" within the meaning of § 6(e).
Under a Department of the Interior regulation first promulgated in 1952, 17 Fed. Reg. 7368, and in effect at the time Congress passed the Statehood Act, an application for a withdrawal temporarily segregated the lands covered by the application. That regulation provided:
"The noting of the receipt of the application . . . shall temporarily segregate such lands from settlement, location, sale, selection, entry, lease, and other forms of disposal under the public land laws . . . to the extent that the withdrawal or reservation applied for, if effected, would prevent such forms of disposal. To that extent, action on all prior applications the allowance of which is discretionary, and on all subsequent applications, respecting such lands will be suspended until final action on the application for withdrawal or reservation has been taken." 43 CFR § 295.11(a) (Supp. 1958).
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