Troubled Waters

The senior Senator from Texas waggled his head and asked plaintively: "Is there nothing beyond the reach of arbitrary power?" Tom Connally was complaining about last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision, which took away control of the tidal oil lands in the Gulf of Mexico from Texas and Louisiana and gave it to the Federal Government.

The decision should not have been a surprise, since the Supreme Court had handed down a similar ruling against the state of California three years ago. But in Texas, the news struck like a tornado. Texans protested that the state's title to submerged coastal lands dated back more than 100 years to its days as an independent republic. Raged San Antonio Oilman Fred W. Shield: "It is absolutely a steal from the state of Texas!"

How big is the prize which Texas thinks is being stolen? According to some geologists, it is 13 billion barrels of petroleum in that part of the continental shelf which curves from the Mississippi Delta to the mouth of the Rio Grande. In search of this oil, some 35 companies have paid Texas and Louisiana more than $52 million in leases and royalties since 1945 and have drilled 131 offshore wells. But many have been dry and the big strike has not yet been made. Last week only five wells were operating off the coast of Texas, and production was so poor that oilmen were about ready to give up. The companies' have had better luck off Louisiana. Loading their drilling rigs on barges, they have dotted the coastal waters with 50 producing wells (cost: $2,000,000 each). Some are perched on platforms 25 miles out to sea. But with production at only 395 barrels a day oilmen estimated that they have taken, out less than $1 in revenue for every $10 invested.

Before the U.S. can exploit even an acre of tidelands, Congress must set up new administrative machinery. The legislators have been in no hurry to do so. After three years, the U.S. has not yet taken over the administration of California tidelands, and some $24 million in royalties have piled-up in escrow.

Friends in Congress of the oilmen hoped to settle things another way; they wanted Congress to upset the Supreme Court ruling and turn the tidal lands back to the states. But there seemed small chance of any such quick congressional action. Furthermore, many a citizen in and out of Congress thought that the conservation of tidal oil and its future development by private companies could be done better under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government than the states.

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