58
Opinion of the Court
The regulation temporarily foreclosed any use of the land that a decision by the Secretary of the Interior to grant the application would prevent. It also suspended all pending discretionary applications and all subsequent applications for other uses of the land. This temporary segregation remained in effect unless and until the Secretary of the Interior denied an application. § 295.13(c).
The Special Master adopted the United States' view that the application and the regulation together "set apart" all lands within the Range. Report 464. We agree that this conclusion follows from a straightforward application of § 295.11. Alaska argues that the regulation was not intended to operate on submerged lands. The object of the regulation is quite clear: to prevent, during the pendency of an application, any use of the land that would frustrate federal control if the application were ultimately granted. That goal is implicated wherever a threat to future federal control exists—whether the lands in question are uplands or submerged lands. The State focuses on the fact that the regulation segregates lands from sale, entry, or other forms of disposal, and argues that submerged lands are ordinarily not subject to such forms of disposal. Cf. Utah Div. of State Lands, 482 U. S., at 203. But the language in Utah Div. of State Lands on which Alaska relies reflects the Court's recognition that under the general land laws opening up lands for settlement, private parties ordinarily cannot lay claims to submerged lands. In Alaska, however, specific laws had opened up certain submerged lands for mining well prior to the filing of the application for the Range. See, e. g., Act of June 6, 1900, § 26, 31 Stat. 329-330 (providing that "land and shoal water between low and mean high tide on the shores, bays, and inlets of Bering Sea . . . shall be subject to exploration and mining for gold and other precious metals"); Act of May 31, 1938, ch. 297, 52 Stat. 588 (extending provisions beyond the Bering Sea to "the shores, bays, and inlets of Alaska"); Act of Aug. 8, 1947, 61 Stat. 916 (extending
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