Bedroc Limited, LLC, and Western Elite, Inc. v. United States et al. (541 U.S. 176)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 31, 2004 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 541 U.S. 176 · 124 S. Ct. 1587
- Decided
- March 31, 2004
- Term
- October Term 2003
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice O’Con-nor, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join. The question here is whether sand and gravel are “valuable minerals” reserved to the United States in land grants issued under the Pittman Underground Water Act of 1919 (Pittman Act or Act), ch. 77, 41 Stat. 293. We hold they are not. Beginning with the Homestead Act of 1862, ch. 75,12 Stat. 392, and stretching into the early 20th century, Congress enacted a series of land-grant statutes aimed at settling the American frontier. One of these was the Pittman Act. That Act sought to succeed where earlier homestead laws had failed: promoting development and population growth in the State of Nevada. H. R. Rep. No. 286, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1919). It was thought that Nevada’s lack of surface water resources was hindering its agricultural progress. Ibid. After rejecting various proposals to directly fund exploration for underground water, Congress enacted the Pittman Act to encourage private citizens to prospect for water in Nevada. Id., at 1. Nevada lies in the heart of the Great Basin, that part of the United States lying roughly between the Sierra Nevada Range on the west and the Wasatch and other mountain ranges on the east. The western face of the Sierra Nevada blocks rain-bearing winds off the Pacific Ocean from…
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