Social and Economic Impacts of Outer Continental Shelf Activities on Individuals and Families, Volume 2

The State of Louisiana has the oldest offshore oil and gas leasing program in the world, and the tremendous economic value of the oil and gas resources that lay in the submerged lands unde rwaters adjacent to the Louisiana coastline led to a decades-long battle between the federal and coastal state governments over the control of those lands. That battle took the form of presidential proclamations, Supreme Court decisions, and federal law. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to lease federal submerged lands for mineral extraction activities. The first federal offshore lease sale, held in 1954, covered 419,000 acres of submerged lands off the Louisiana coast and started a pattern of activity that, by 1991, had netted the U.S. government more than $25 trillion in lease payments, royalties, and bonuses. By 1980, two more Supreme Court cases involving Louisiana had finally been resolved, entitling Louisiana to the submerged lands extending three nautical miles seaward of the coastline