Chapter 16.
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/statutes-at-large/vol-43/chapter-16-174603·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
CHAP. 16.— Joint Resolution Directing the President to institute and prosecute suits to cancel certain leases of oil lands and incidental contracts, and for other purposes. February 8, 1924.[[S. J. Res. 54](/us/bill/68/sjres/54).][[Pub. Res., No. 4](/us/bill/68/pubres/4).] Whereas it appears from evidence taken by the Committee on Public Naval oil reserves, leases, etc.Preamble.Lands and Surveys of the United States Senate that certain lease of Naval Reserve Numbered 3, in the State of Wyoming, bearing date April 7, 1922, made in form by the Government of the United States, through Albeit B.
Fall, Secretary of the Interior, and Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy, as lessor, to the Mammoth Oil Company, as lessee, and that certain contract between the Government of the United States and the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company, dated April 25, 1922, signed by Edward C. Finney, Acting Secretary of the Interior, and Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy, relating among other things to the construction of oil tanks at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, and that certain lease of Naval Reserve Numbered 1, in 6the State of California, bearing date December 11, 1922, made in form by the Government of the United States through Albert B.
Fall, Secretary of the Interior, and Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy, as lessor, to the Pan American Petroleum Company, as lessee, were executed under circumstances indicating fraud and corruption; and Whereas the said leases and contract were entered into without authority on the part of the officers purporting to act in the execution of the same for the United States and in violation of the laws of Congress; and Whereas such leases and contract were made in defiance of the settled policy of the Government, adhered to through three successive administrations, to maintain in the ground a great reserve supply of oil adequate to the needs of the Navy in any emergency threatening the national security:
Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Leases, etc., declared against public interest. That the said leases and contract are against the public interest and that the lands embraced therein should be recovered and held for the purpose to which they were dedicated; and President to institute suit to cancel leases, etc.*Resolved further*, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized and directed immediately to cause suit *Post*, pp. 16, 1315.to be instituted and prosecuted for the annulment and cancellation of the said leases and contract and all contracts incidental or supplemental thereto, to enjoin the further extraction of oil from the said reserves under said leases or from the territory covered by the same, to secure any further appropriate incidental relief, and to prosecute such other actions or proceedings, civil and criminal, as may be warranted by the facts in relation to the making of the said leases and contract.
Special counsel to prosecute to be appointed.*Post*, p. 16.And the President is further authorized and directed to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, special counsel who shall have charge and control of the prosecution of such litigation, anything in the statutes touching the powers of the Attorney General of the Department of Justice to the contrary notwithstanding. Approved, February 8, 1924.