870
Opinion of the Court
materials mined for fuel, oil, gas, or asphalt"); id., at 1788 (bill by Sen. Nelson "to provide for the reservation of the coal, lignite, oil, and natural gas in the public lands").
Finally, Congress passed the 1909 Act, which authorized the Federal Government, for the first time, to issue limited land patents. In contrast to the broad reservations of mineral rights proposed in the failed bills, however, the 1909 Act provided for only a narrow reservation. The 1909 Act authorized issuance of patents to individuals who had already made good-faith agricultural entries onto tracts later identified as coal lands, but the issuance was to be subject to "a reservation to the United States of all coal in said lands, and the right to prospect for, mine, and remove the same." 30 U. S. C. § 81. The 1909 Act also permitted the patentee to "mine coal for use on the land for domestic purposes prior to the disposal by the United States of the coal deposit." Ibid. A similar Act in 1910 opened the remaining coal lands to new entry under the homestead laws, subject to the same reservation of coal to the United States. 30 U. S. C. §§ 83-85.
Among the lands patented to settlers under the 1909 and 1910 Acts were former reservation lands of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, which the Tribe had ceded to the United States in 1880 in return for certain allotted lands provided for their settlement. Act of June 15, 1880, ch. 223, 21 Stat. 199. In 1938, the United States restored to the Tribe, in trust, title to the ceded reservation lands still owned by the United States, including the reserved coal in lands patented under the 1909 and 1910 Acts. As a result, the Tribe now has equitable title to the coal in lands within its reservation settled by homesteaders under the 1909 and 1910 Acts.
We are advised that over 20 million acres of land were patented under the 1909 and 1910 Acts and that the lands— including those lands in which the Tribe owns the coal—contain large quantities of CBM gas. Brief for Montana et al. as Amici Curiae 2. At the time the Acts were passed, CBM
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