Cite as: 526 U. S. 865 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
expelled when coal is heated, or liquid "coal extracts," which "can be extracted through the use of appropriate solvents." Brief for Federal Respondents 26-27. The federal respondents' expressed concern that if the coal reservation does not encompass CBM gas it does not encompass these "components" of coal, see ibid., is unfounded.)
There is some evidence of limited and sporadic exploitation of CBM gas as a fuel prior to the passage of the 1909 and 1910 Acts. See, e. g., E. Craig & M. Myers, Ownership of Methane Gas in Coalbeds, 24 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Inst. 767, 768 (1978) ("As early as 1746, methane was being drained from an English coal mine through pipes and used for heating"); see also United States Steel Corp. v. Hoge, 503 Pa. 140, 146, 468 A. 2d 1380, 1383 (1983) (noting that as early as 1900, "certain wells were drilled [into coalbeds in Pennsylvania, which] produced coalbed gas"). It seems unlikely, though, that Congress considered this limited drilling for CBM gas. To the extent Congress had an awareness of it, there is every reason to think it viewed the extraction of CBM gas as drilling for natural gas, not mining coal.
That distinction is significant because the question before us is not whether Congress would have thought that CBM gas had some fuel value, but whether Congress considered it part of the coal fuel. When it enacted the 1909 and 1910 Acts, Congress did not reserve all minerals or energy resources in the lands. It reserved only coal, and then only in lands that were specifically identified as valuable for coal. It chose not to reserve oil, natural gas, or any other known or potential energy resources.
The limited nature of the 1909 and 1910 Act reservations is confirmed by subsequent congressional enactments. When Congress wanted to reserve gas rights that might yield valuable fuel, it did so in explicit terms. In 1912, for example, Congress enacted a statute that reserved "oil and gas" in Utah lands. Act of Aug. 24, 1912, 37 Stat. 496. In addition, both the 1912 Act and a later Act passed in 1914
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