Amoco Production Company, on Behalf of Itself and the Class It Represents v. Southern Ute Indian Tribe et al. (526 U.S. 865)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 7, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 526 U.S. 865 · 119 S. Ct. 1719
- Decided
- June 7, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 7–1
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. Land patents issued pursuant to the Coal Lands Acts of 1909 and 1910 conveyed to the patentee the land and everything in it, except the “coal,” which was reserved to the United States. Coal Lands Act of 1909 (1909 Act), 35 Stat. 844, 80 U.S.C. §81; Coal Lands Act of 1910 (1910 Act), ch. 318, 36 Stat. 583, 30 U. S. C. §§ 88-85. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit determined that the reservation of ‘‘coal” includes gas found within the coal formation, commonly referred to as coalbed methane gas (CBM gas). See 151 F. 3d 1251, 1256 (1998) (en banc). We granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 1118 (1999), and now reverse. I During the second half of the 19th century, Congress sought to encourage the settlement of the West by providing land in fee simple absolute to homesteaders who entered and cultivated tracts of a designated size for a period of years. See, e. g., 1862 Homestead Act, 12 Stat. 392; 1877 Desert Land Act, ch. 107, 19 Stat. 377, as amended, 43 U. S. C. §§ 321-323. Public lands classified as valuable for coal were exempted from entry under the general land-grant statutes and instead were made available for purchase under the 1864 Coal Lands Act, ch. 205, § 1, 13 Stat. 343, and the 1873 Coal Lands Act, ch. 279, § 1, 17 Stat. 607, which set a maximum limit of 160 acres on individual entry and minimum prices…
Excerpt of a 24,788-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.