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and regulation, taken together, placed the Range squarely within the proviso of § 6(e), preventing a transfer of lands covered by the application to Alaska.

The partial dissent's contrary conclusion rests on the view that the lands covered by the application "had no certainty of ever becoming a refuge or reservation." Post, at 71 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). But the dissent identifies nothing in § 6(e) requiring "certainty" that a projected final action will in fact occur, converting lands designated for a particular use into lands so used, in order for § 6(e)'s proviso to prevent the transfer of such lands to Alaska. Moreover, our reading of the proviso of § 6(e) is reinforced by Alaska's concession that the uplands within the Range are held by the United States, not Alaska. Tr. of Oral Arg. 79; Letter from Attorney General Bruce M. Botelho to the Clerk of the Court, Mar. 3, 1997, p. 1. If the Master were correct that the application and regulation did not operate to "set apart" submerged lands in the proposed Range within the meaning of § 6(e), then it follows that the same instruments could not set apart uplands within the Range. Nevertheless, Alaska disclaims ownership of the uplands. The State argues that it could only have claimed uplands within the Refuge under § 6(b) of the Alaska Statehood Act, which authorized Alaska to select a specified amount of "vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved" federal land. Since Alaska did not select the uplands before the Secretary of the Interior approved the application for the Range in 1960, and since after 1960 the uplands were no longer "vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved," the State cannot now argue that it owns the uplands. Ibid. But the State's argument ignores the main clause of § 6(e). Under that clause, the United States transferred to Alaska "[a]ll real and personal property of the United States situated in the Territory of Alaska which is specifically used for the sole purpose of conservation and protection of the fisheries and wildlife of Alaska...." The State does not explain why all

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of the lands within the Range-uplands as well as submerged lands-would not have been transferred to Alaska at statehood as real property used for the protection of wildlife unless covered by the proviso. Unless all lands-submerged lands and uplands-covered by the application were "set apart" within the meaning of the proviso to § 6(e), they would have passed to Alaska under the main clause of §6(e). There is no basis for concluding that the United States retained uplands but not submerged lands within the Range.

C

In sum, we conclude that the United States did not transfer to Alaska submerged lands within the Range at statehood. The 1957 application to create the wildlife refuge clearly encompassed submerged lands. Since its seaward boundary is the low-water line along Alaska's coast, the Range necessarily encompasses the tidelands. Further reflecting an intent to withhold submerged lands is the statement of justification accompanying the application, which describes the habitat of various species along the coast and beneath inland waters. A Department of the Interior regulation in effect when the application was filed and when Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Act operated to "segregate" the lands for which the application was pending. Section 6(e) of the Alaska Statehood Act expressly prevented lands that had been "set apart as [a] refug[e]" from passing to Alaska. It follows that, because all of the lands covered by the 1957 application had been "set apart" for future use as a refuge, the United States retained title to submerged lands within the Range. We therefore sustain the United States' exception to the Master's recommendation.

VI

We overrule Alaska's exceptions to the Special Master's recommended rulings that (1) Alaska's submerged lands in the vicinity of barrier islands should be measured as a 3-mile

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belt from a coastline following the normal baseline under the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone; (2) Dinkum Sands is not an island constituting part of Alaska's coastline under the Submerged Lands Act; and (3) submerged lands beneath tidally influenced waters within the boundary of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska did not pass to Alaska at statehood. We sustain the United States' exception to the Special Master's recommended ruling that offshore submerged lands within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge passed to Alaska at statehood.

The recommendations of the Special Master are adopted to the extent that they are consistent with this opinion. The parties are directed to prepare and submit an appropriate decree for this Court's consideration. The Court retains jurisdiction to entertain such further proceedings, enter such orders, and issue such writs as from time to time may be determined necessary or advisable to effectuate and supplement the forthcoming decree and the rights of the respective parties.

The parties shall bear their own costs.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE SCALIA join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I agree with the Court that the limit of inland waters in the area of Stefansson Sound should be determined by reference to the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, in which Alaska's proposed 10-mile rule finds no purchase. I also agree that Dinkum Sands is not an island within the meaning of the Convention. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II, and III of the Court's opinion. I do not share the Court's view that the United States holds title to submerged lands within National Petroleum Reserve Number 4. Nor do I agree with the Court's conclusion that, “at the time of [Alaska's] statehood," the then-unapproved application to create the Arctic Wildlife Range "expressly

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retained" the submerged lands within the boundaries described in that application under the Submerged Lands Act. I thus respectfully dissent from Parts IV and V of the Court's opinion.

I

I turn first to the Court's discussion of the National Petroleum Reserve. The Master's Report posited two possible measures for the specificity with which Congress must declare its intent to retain submerged lands that would otherwise pass to a new State. For those lands under inland waters-lands historically viewed as held by the United States "for the ultimate benefit of future States," Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U. S. 193, 201 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted)-the Special Master employed a strict presumption of state ownership. The Master determined that lands under the territorial sea-those lands vested in the States solely by the Submerged Lands Actought to be presumed to remain in federal hands under "the principle that federal grants are to be construed strictly in favor of the United States." California ex rel. State Lands Comm'n v. United States, 457 U. S. 273, 287 (1982).

It is my view, however, that, since the enactment of the Submerged Lands Act, the test for determining whether submerged lands-inland or territorial—are conveyed to a newly created State or retained by the United States is that set forth in the Act.

Following in the wake of our decision in United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947), as it did, the Submerged Lands Act is widely recognized for having deeded to coastal States the submerged lands lying within 3-mile bands surrounding their coasts. See §3(a), 43 U. S. C. § 1311(a); see also United States v. Maine, 420 U. S. 515, 525 (1975). The Act declared it in the

"public interest that (1) title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States, and the natural resources within

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such lands and waters, and (2) the right and power to manage, administer, lease, develop, and use the said lands and natural resources all in accordance with applicable State law be, and they are, subject to the provisions hereof, recognized, confirmed, established, and vested in and assigned to the respective States . . . ." §3(a).

The definition of "lands beneath navigable waters" included those submerged lands under the territorial sea. See § 2(a)(2), 43 U. S. C. § 1301(a)(2). The Act's undertaking to "ves[t] in and assig[n] to" the States the rights to those lands thus conveyed to the States lands that this Court had found in United States v. California to be exclusively federal enclaves. The definition of "lands beneath navigable waters" also included those lands beneath inland waters. See § 2(a)(1) (defining "lands beneath navigable waters" to include "all lands within the boundaries of each of the respective States which are covered by nontidal waters that were navigable" (emphasis added)). Accordingly-and the majority and I agree to this point-coastal States entering the Union after the passage of the Submerged Lands Act gained title to offshore submerged lands and to inland submerged lands through the operation of that statute.

Section 3, which conveyed and confirmed the States' title to submerged lands, was subject to a series of exceptions. As relevant here, §5 of the Act excepted from § 3's terms "all lands expressly retained by or ceded to the United States when the State entered the Union (otherwise than by a general retention or cession of lands underlying the marginal sea)." §5(a), 43 U. S. C. § 1313(a) (emphasis added). As to lands beneath the marginal (or territorial) sea, it is undisputed that the “expressly retained" exception sets forth the test for determining whether a withdrawal or reservation of land by the United States is effective in preventing conveyance of title to submerged lands. It seems clear to me that it is also the test for determining whether the United States