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Show rH& of Uie bitterest fights in Uils j congress, all under the guise of .itates' rights, is the battle over the so-called tidelands oil bUl. Tr measure is backed by a huge c lobby but ostensibly the fight is be ing made on the Issue of statf rights to pass the bill which som senators, including Senator Tobf; of New Hampshire, say "would mil lify. cast aside and destroy the decision de-cision of the supreme court of the j United States." The measure which would give U the states title to lands under th tideland waters was whoop; through the house by a vote of 2; to 29. It is now before the senad and indications are that It will pa.-but pa.-but will be vetoed by President Tit man since he vetoed much the sari: bill last year. Action of the con sress comes in the face of a suprem, court decision which declares th; marginal sea lands extending from low tide to the three-mile zone limit are the nation's sovereignty, since international law gives this nation jurisdiction over that much of the sea. : As a matter of fact, observers here ; declare the term "tidelands" a misnomer in connection with the bill. Tidelands mean that part at the coast between low and high tide marks and the government has never laid claim to this land such as the land underneath the water in bays, ' harbors and inlets. Nor has the government ever laid claim to the beds of lakes nor streams within the ; boundaries of the states. What the j supreme court referred to In its de- j cision was the lands from low tide mark and extending into the sea to j the three-mile limit. According to the interior department there is no i way to estimate the riches lying 'oe- neath this water in oil needed for! the national security. Trie bill would give all this land to the states which in turn would give it away to private oil companies for exploitation for private profit. STARTING WITH AN ANGRY BATTLE over the committee to which it should be sent, proponents and opponents of the oleomargarine tax repeal bill jockeyed for hours when the measure, which has already al-ready passed the house by a decisive vote, reached the senate. So tense was the feeling that Senator Van-denburg, Van-denburg, president of the senate and who has the power to assign bills i.o committees, demanded that the senate vote on the commUtee t,. which he should send the bill vhether the senate agriculture or '-,e senate finance committee. The niter lobby, of course, wants the ill in the agricultural committee hile the margarine lobby wants it i the finance committee. It ap-;ars ap-;ars that the senate fight over this ontroversial subject will be a long- :lrawn out affair. Administration forces are alarmed t the radical cuts the house approbations appro-bations committee has made in the fidget of the federal security agency hich administers all the vast seal se-al security set-up. So bitter has en the feeling that it promises to vcome an issue in the coming cam- ugn unless the senate puts some f the FSA money back when the ipropriation bill reaches the up-:;er up-:;er house. Administration force-, ijoint out that the 1944 GOP plnt-lorm plnt-lorm pledged support to 'extension of the existing old-age insurance and unemployment insurance systems sys-tems to all employees not already covered" and then they point to thf fact that the budget estimate for operation op-eration of the office of the social security se-curity commissioner, which was $3,-131,165, $3,-131,165, was cut to $221,000 a slash of about 93 per cent. The effect i-. to leave the social security commissioner commis-sioner impotent to act. They als, slashed the request for informationn! services and for research and statistics statis-tics and they slashed approximately $23,000,000 in the funds for the U. S. - employment service and the unemployment unem-ployment compensation commission . and combined the two in a new bureau bu-reau of employment security entirely en-tirely outside the jurisdiction of the social security administration. Of course, chairman John Tnber of the committee has attempted to include policy legislation hi his appropriations ap-propriations heretofore, and this is certainly policy legislation under the guise of appropriations. The first session of the 80th congress took the USES away from the department of labor and placed it In FSA. Now this session takes it from FSA and makes it an independent bureau. OBSERVERS WATCHED with in- t terest what they term an attempt to sabotage the Taft-Ellender-Wag-ner housing act by Sen. Harry P. Cain of Washington. Senator Cain was one of the opponents of the bill which passed the senate and is now in the house. |