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00113S I I , I I 1957] THE PELTON DECISION 251 The essence of the decision, as of the license, is the power of the commission to issue, regardless of state law, an administrative fiat based on the proposition that the government, as owner of Federal reserved lands, may require that a given quantity of water shall run through its lands. This is, of course, not stated-at least not in these terms. Mani- festly, it seems, it is the gist of the decision, for the government ob- viously is not an appropriator. Its only possible theory is that of a riparian proprietor who has never surrendered any part of his riparian right. The defiance of property rights acquired through a system of ap- propriation has been perceived neither by the majority of the court nor by a writer on the subjectIoo. Neither Justice Burton nor Mr. Schwartz, the writer referred to, even mentions the law of appropria- tion. The latter pays his respects to western water laws by referring to "water law" as "a shibboleth-ridden, metaphysical, almost religious field."lol It might be replied that, as a shibboleth, the law of appropria- tion has dominated an area covering more than half the continental United States and is probably the greatest single factor in the develop- ment of the agricultural economy of the region between the 98th merid- ian (bisecting Nebraska) and the Pacific Ocean.102 As a final thought, the writer would hesitate to venture the conclu- sion that the decision should be blamed either on ignorance or mis- construction of the law. Rather, it seems that the court, as it has many times, especially in recent years, has sought to assert in what it may deem a field of some confusion the superiority of the Federal govern- ment. It may well conceive its function may encompass the implement- ing of the too-cautious steps of Congress in vindicating the national power. Certainly, the court may well be on firm ground in asserting national claims to lands under the marginal sea. If such lands may be said to be susceptible of any ownership, such ownership is an attribute of national, not state or territorial, sovereigntyI03 But it is one thing to recognize the amorphous quality of property rights in lands under the out. Also provided for is future development under the Federal reclamation laws, but this development is limited by the license. For example, additional appropria- tions on Lake Creek are limited to 20,000 acre-feet annually; on Squaw Creek, the limitation is to "all flows during the irrigation season"; on Crooked River below the Highway bridge, no more than 2,500 acre-feet may be taken annually for the Deschutes project. In the Matter of Portland General Company, Project No. 2030, Federal Power Commission Order of December 18, 1951. 100 Schwartz, Federalism a"d A"adromolls Fish, 23 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 535 (1955). 101Id. at 537. 1O::! Only a minor part of the development has been under the Reclamation Act, but, under that act alone, the government has constructed fifty-eight projects, irrigating some 5,000,000 acres. Gross crop value on this land was estimated at a half billion dollars in 1947. UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION MAN- UAL-1949, p. 231. 103 Munro, The Supreme Court and Ihe Marginal Sea, 4 WYo. L.J. 181 (1950).