User:Laura Ensminger/Agricultural Entry Act

OVERVIEW:

The Agricultural Entry Act allowed Federal lands containing minerals, petroleum, nitrate, phosphate, potash, oil, gas, and asphalt to be leased to private developers, as long as such deposits in specially zoned lands were left alone. The Federal government reserved the right to abrogate whatever uses the surrounding lands had been developed for in the event that it was deemed necessary for deposit procurement.

HISTORY:

In the second half of the 19th century, as the population in the United States grew, Westward Expansion became prevalent. Congress enacted Homestead laws, a series of laws which encouraged settlement and agricultural development of large stretches of western land, to support this expansion. Shortly after the passage of the Homestead Laws, Congress recognized the potential resource density of many of the lands which they were selling off. Congress grew fearful that private entities would amass much of the Western land, and monopolize the resources which lay within, ultimately harming consumers and the economy.

To prevent this monopolization, Congress began to enact laws which allowed them to reserve lands, and the resources contained within, to the Federal Government. For example, the Pickett Act of 1910, allowed the Department of Interior to withdraw any public lands and reserve them for public purposes. The Picket Act, however, was partial in scope, only covering coal, oil, gas and phosphates. In 1912, Congress amended the Pickett Act to include a provision allowing exploration and purchase of metal-containing minerals on withdrawn lands. However, this then created a new issue. Because so much land was being classified as potentially valuable for its resources, and therefore reserved to the government, agricultural development of the West was again deterred.

To curb the potential for monopolization, while still encouraging agricultural and residential development of the land, Congress began to enact a modified series of laws. These laws reserved resources for the federal government, while still allowing settlement and use of the land. They began by reserving the right to certain resources, such as coal in the Act of March 3, 1909, and reserving certain enumerated minerals in the Act of August 24, 1912. Eventually, Congress passed the Agricultural Entry Act, which provided for homestead entry onto lands withdrawn from entry, classified, or reported as valuable for "phosphate, nitrate, potash, oil, gas, or asphaltic minerals". The passage of the Agricultural Entry Act allowed for more widespread entry for a larger array of resources contained within the land.

LATER DEVELOPMENTS AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:

Since the passage of the Agricultural Entry Act, caselaw and additional statutes have clarified Congress's right reserve public lands, and detailed how Congress can exercise this right. One of the largest expansions of mineral reservation rights is the Stock raising Homestead Act (SRHA), passed in 1916. This Act gave ranchers 640 acres of public lands. However, it separated surface rights from subsurface rights, so that the land's resources would be reserved to the government. This idea became known as a “split estate”. The SRHA embodied an even broader approach then the Agricultural Entry Act because it did not enumerate broad categories of resources, but instead retained governmental rights to ALL subsurface property.

When it came time to utilize the reserved resources, however, the problem arose as to how they can be utilized without disturbing the surface land. In 1940, the Court in Bourdieu v. Seaboard Oil held that if mineral lessees damaged the surface property, they could be found liable for any damages which they caused. This decision exemplified a shift in thinking; while Congress traditionally viewed the mineral estate as dominant, they began to recognize the interplay between surface rights and mineral rights, and the need for protections for surface owners. This led to a series of policy decisions, including the decision to interpret the Agricultural Entry Act as requiring that those wishing to access the minerals must file a bond with the landowner, as a security for the likely damage done to the crops and lands, and the necessary improvements to those lands.

To help with the implementation of both the Agricultural Entry Act and the SRHA, the Mineral Leasing Act, was passed in 1920. This Act allowed the Department of the Interior to build upon their powers established in the Agricultural Entry Act, and begin leasing deposits of shale, phosphate, coal, oil, gas and sodium, which they owned, to private developers. This meant that if the federal government wanted to reserve public lands, they no longer had to actually be the ones harvesting the resources.