Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 88 Part 1.djvu/1255

 88 STAT.

PUBLIC LAW 93-435-OCT. 5, 1974

(xi) all submerged lands within the Buck Island Reef National Monument as described in Presidential Proclamation 3448 dated December 28, 1961. Upon request of the Governor of Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa, the Secretary of the Interior may, with or without reimbursement, and subject to the procedure specified in subsection (c) of this section convey all right, title, and interest of the United States in any of the lands described in clauses (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), or (viii) of this subsection to the government of Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa, as the case may be, with the concurrence of the agency having custody thereof. (c) No conveyance shall be made by the Secretary pursuant to this section until the expiration of sixty calendar days (excluding days on which the House of Representatives or the Senate is not in session because of an adjournment of more than three days to a day certain) from the date on which the Secretary of the Interior submits to the Committees on Interior and Insular Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Senate an explanatory statement indicating the tract proposed to be conveyed and the need therefor, unless prior to the expiration of such sixty calendar days both committees inform the Secretary that they wish to take no action with respect to the proposed conveyance. SEC. 2. (a) Nothing in this Act shall affect the right of the President to establish naval defensive sea areas and naval airspace reservations around and over the islands of Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands when deemed necessary for national defense. (b) Nothing in this Act shall affect the use, development, improvement, or control by or under the constitutional authority of the United States of the lands transferred by the first section of this Act, and the navigable waters overlying such lands, for the purposes of navigation or flood control or the production of power, or be construed as the release or relinquishment of any rights of the United States arising under the constitutional authority of Congress to regulate or improve navigation, or to provide for flood control or the production of power. (c) The United States retains all of its navigational servitude and rights in and powers of regulation and control of the lands conveyed by the first section of this Act, and the navigable waters overlying such lands, for the constitutional purposes of commerce, navigation, national defense, and international affairs, all of which shall be paramount to, but shall not be deemed to include, proprietary rights of ownership, or the rights of management, administration, leasing, use, and development of the lands and natural resources which are specifically conveyed to the government of Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa, as the case may be, by the first section of this Act. (d) Nothing in this Act shall affect the status of lands beyond the three-mile limit described in section 1 of this Act. SEC. 3. Subsection (b) of section 31 of the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands (48 U.S.C. 1545(b)) is amended to read as follows: " (b) All right, title, and interest of the United States in the property placed under the control of the government of the Virgin Islands by section 4(a) of the Organic Act of the Virgin Islands of the United States (48 U.S.C. 1405c(a)), not reserved to the United States by the Secretary of the Interior within one hundred and twenty days after the date of enactment of this subsection, is hereby conveyed to such government. The conveyance effected by the preceding sentence shall not apply to that land and other property which on the date of enactment of this subsection is administered by the Secretary of the Interior

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76 Stat. 1441. 16 USC 431 note.

Conveyances, explanatory statement, submittal to congressional committees.

Land and navigable w a t e r s. 48 USC 1706.

Virgin Islands, public property.

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