Back in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower's Republican Congress passed the Submerged Lands Act that awarded the oil-rich "tidelands" off U.S. shores to the states instead of the Federal Governmentjust as Ike had promised to do in his campaign. But the law had a basic flaw. It set a three-mile limit for Atlantic and Pacific states, yet allowed the states on the Gulf of Mexicowhich has most of the under water oilto claim up to three leagues (10.3 miles) of offshore land, provided that those boundaries existed "at the time such State became a member of the...
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