Cite as: 521 U. S. 1 (1997)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
retained" the submerged lands within the boundaries described in that application under the Submerged Lands Act. I thus respectfully dissent from Parts IV and V of the Court's opinion.
I
I turn first to the Court's discussion of the National Petroleum Reserve. The Master's Report posited two possible measures for the specificity with which Congress must declare its intent to retain submerged lands that would otherwise pass to a new State. For those lands under inland waters—lands historically viewed as held by the United States "for the ultimate benefit of future States," Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U. S. 193, 201 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted)—the Special Master employed a strict presumption of state ownership. The Master determined that lands under the territorial sea—those lands vested in the States solely by the Submerged Lands Act— ought to be presumed to remain in federal hands under "the principle that federal grants are to be construed strictly in favor of the United States." California ex rel. State Lands Comm'n v. United States, 457 U. S. 273, 287 (1982).
It is my view, however, that, since the enactment of the Submerged Lands Act, the test for determining whether submerged lands—inland or territorial—are conveyed to a newly created State or retained by the United States is that set forth in the Act.
Following in the wake of our decision in United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947), as it did, the Submerged Lands Act is widely recognized for having deeded to coastal States the submerged lands lying within 3-mile bands surrounding their coasts. See § 3(a), 43 U. S. C. § 1311(a); see also United States v. Maine, 420 U. S. 515, 525 (1975). The Act declared it in the
"public interest that (1) title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States, and the natural resources within
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