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Opinion of Thomas, J.
State Lands, the Court addressed for the first time the argument that a retention—as opposed to a conveyance—of submerged lands by the United States could defeat a future State's title to those lands, 482 U. S., at 200. In response, the Court crafted the two-part test relied on by the majority today. Id., at 202. Whatever can be said of that test, it was not before the drafters of the Submerged Lands Act. Accordingly, there is no reason to believe that, when Congress employed the phrase "expressly retained," it intended a meaning not obvious from those words and not set forth in an opinion of this Court until three decades after the Act became effective.
But the Submerged Lands Act, I think, embraces at least part of the policy that we had attributed to Congress in several pre-Act cases. We have, for example, stated that we would not affirm a conveyance of inland submerged lands that was not set out in "clear and especial words," Martin v. Lessee of Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 411 (1842), or "unless the claim . . . in terms embraces the land under the waters of the stream," Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 672 (1891). It is, I believe, the meaning of these passages that "expressly retained" captures. Because the only "lands" described in § 3(a) of the Act are submerged lands, the requirement that any retention of them be "expres[s]" means that the retention must "in terms embrac[e] the land under the waters." Accordingly, contrary to the Master's conclusion and much of the majority's analysis, a retention of lands cannot be inferred from, for example, the purpose of a given attempted federal undertaking. To be sure, prior to the passage of the Submerged Lands Act, the Court looked beyond the words used in efforts to prevent passage of submerged lands to newly created States. For example, in United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S. 49 (1926), the Court noted that "disposals by the United States during the territorial period are not lightly to be inferred, and should not be regarded as intended unless the intention was definitely declared or other-
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