Boone

Original applications for writs of mandamus by which the validity of chapter 303, Statutes and Amendments of 1921, page 404, and certain specific sections *154 thereof, and also chapter 285, Statutes and Amendments of 1923i, page 593, amendatory of said chapter 303, which provides for the granting of permits to residents of the state who are citizens of the United States, to enter and prospect upon tidal and submerged lands and to lease the same on a royalty basis, is assailed.

All of the petitioners herein are applicants for permits to enter and prospect for oil, oil shale, gas, phosphate, sodium and other mineral deposits upon the several areas of public lands described in each respective application. Said lands are tidal and submerged lands situate in the vicinity of a small cove of the Pacific Ocean at Seacliff, county of Ventura, this state. Respondent, W. S. Kingsbury, surveyor-general of the state of California and ex-officio register of the state land office, has refused to grant the permits applied for, basing his refusal to do so upon the ground that the granting of the same would authorize the conduct of a business in and upon tidal and submerged lands which would…

I dissent. The statute declared valid by the majority opinion throws open the entire sea coast of California (with the exception of limited areas adjacent to municipalities) for exploration and possession for the development of oil and gas by private parties. This means that from Mexico to the Oregon line a strip of tide and submerged land three miles in width and nearly 1200 miles in length, including the tide and submerged lands along the harbors, bays, estuaries, coves, inlets and navigable streams and surrounding the coastal islands, is made available for one of the purposes contemplated by the statute. In my opinion the act, in its operation as to all of said lands, is inconsistent with the trust on which the state holds title to the same for the benefit of all of the people of the state for navigation and fishery. The effect of the main opinion is to compel the surveyor-general to issue a prospecting permit and subsequent lease to any qualified person, association or corporation upon compliance with the formalities prescribed in the act. The 1923 statute (Stats. 1923, pp. 593-595) sought ineffectually to vest in the surveyor-general a discretion to refuse a permit when in…