BEDROC LIMITED, LLC, et al. v. UNITED STATES et al.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
176 OCTOBER TERM, 2003
Syllabus
BEDROC LIMITED, LLC, et al. v. UNITED STATES
et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 02–1593. Argued January 20, 2004—Decided March 31, 2004
The Pittman Underground Water Act of 1919 authorized the Secretary of
the Interior to designate certain “nonmineral” Nevada lands on which
settlers could obtain permits to drill for water. Under § 8 of the Pitt-
man Act, each land grant, or patent, reserved to the United States all
coal and other “valuable minerals” in the lands, and the right to remove
the same. When one of petitioners’ predecessors-in-interest began ex-
tracting sand and gravel from land patented under the Pittman Act, the
Bureau of Land Management ruled that he had trespassed against the
Government’s reserved interest in the property’s “valuable minerals,”
and the Interior Board of Land Appeals affirmed. Petitioner BedRoc
Limited, LLC, which subsequently acquired the property and continued
to remove the sand and gravel under an interim agreement with the
Department of the Interior, and petitioner Western Elite, Inc., filed a
quiet title action in Federal District Court. The court granted the Gov-
ernment summary judgment, holding that the contested sand and gravel
are “valuable minerals” reserved to the United States by the Pittman
Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.
314 F. 3d 1080, reversed and remanded.
The Chief Justice, joined by Justice O’Connor, Justice Scalia,
and Justice Kennedy, concluded that sand and gravel are not “valu-
able minerals” reserved to the United States in land grants issued under
the Pittman Act. In construing the mineral reservation of the Stock-
Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (SRHA)—which was identical to the
Pittman Act’s except insofar as it reserved to the United States “all the
coal and other minerals,” whereas the Pittman Act reserved “valuable
minerals”—this Court determined that neither the dictionary nor the
legal understanding of “minerals” prevailing in 1916 was conclusive, but
that the SRHA’s purpose and history demonstrated that gravel was a
“mineral” reserved to the United States. Watt v. Western Nuclear,
Inc., 462 U. S. 36, 55–60. This Court will not extend that holding to
conclude that sand and gravel are “valuable minerals.” The Western
Nuclear Court had no choice but to speculate about congressional intent
with respect to the scope of the amorphous term “minerals,” but here

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
177 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Syllabus
Congress has textually narrowed the term’s scope by using the modifier
“valuable.” The inquiry begins with the statutory text, and ends there
as the text is unambiguous. The proper inquiry in interpreting mineral
reservations focuses on the reservation’s ordinary meaning when it was
enacted. Amoco Production Co. v. Southern Ute Tribe, 526 U. S. 865,
874. Because the Pittman Act applied only to Nevada, the ultimate
question is whether the State’s sand and gravel were commonly re-
garded as “valuable minerals” in 1919. Common sense says no: They
were, and are, abundant throughout Nevada; they have no intrinsic
value; and they were commercially worthless in 1919. Thus, even if
they were regarded as minerals, no one would have mistaken them for
valuable minerals. The statutory context of the Pittman Act’s mineral
reservation further confirms its ordinary meaning, as Congress explic-
itly cross-referenced the General Mining Act of 1872, and it is beyond
dispute that when the Pittman Act became law, common sand and gravel
could not constitute a locatable “valuable mineral deposit” under the
General Mining Act. Because the statutory reservation’s text clearly
excludes sand and gravel, there is no occasion to resort to legislative
history here. Pp. 181–187.
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Breyer, concluded that the
Pittman Underground Water Act of 1919’s mineral reservation cannot
be meaningfully distinguished from the analogous provision in the
Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (SRHA), and that the mineral
reservations pursuant to both do not include sand and gravel. Empha-
sizing “valuable” in the Pittman Act ignores the fact that the Act uses
“valuable minerals” and “minerals” interchangeably. And it implies
that the Court erred in Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U. S. 36, not
by interpreting “minerals” too broadly to include sand and gravel, but
by interpreting “minerals” too narrowly by reading into the term a re-
quirement that the minerals can be used for commercial purposes. If
“valuable” were the textual source of a commercial purpose require-
ment, then the SRHA’s lack of that modifier would imply that the SRHA
contains no such requirement. Because the SRHA and the Pittman Act
should be construed similarly, the plurality’s reasoning with respect to
the Pittman Act cannot be confined to that Act and naturally carries
over to the SRHA. If sand and gravel are not included within the
Pittman Act’s mineral reservations because they were not considered
“valuable minerals” at the time the Act was passed, they, with respect
to SRHA lands, were not considered to be susceptible of commercial
use when Congress passed the SRHA. Although the Western Nuclear
Court incorrectly defined “minerals” to include sand and gravel, signifi-
cant reliance interests would be upset if Western Nuclear were over-
ruled. The Pittman Act, however, involves substantially less land than

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
178 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
the SRHA, and the Government does not identify any significant reli-
ance interest that would be unsettled by this Court’s failing to extend
Western Nuclear’s reasoning. Pp. 187–189.
Rehnquist, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered
an opinion, in which O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, JJ., joined.
Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Breyer,
J., joined, post, p. 187. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, post, p. 189.
R. Timothy McCrum argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were Clifton S. Elgarten and Ellen
B. Steen.
Assistant Attorney General Sansonetti argued the cause
for respondents. With him on the brief were Solicitor Gen-
eral Olson, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Dan Him-
melfarb, William B. Lazarus, Elizabeth Ann Peterson, and
Blaine T. Welsh.*
Chief Justice Rehnquist announced the judgment of
the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice O’Con-
nor, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join.
The question here is whether sand and gravel are “valu-
able minerals” reserved to the United States in land grants
issued under the Pittman Underground Water Act of 1919
(Pittman Act or Act), ch. 77, 41 Stat. 293. We hold they
are not.
Beginning with the Homestead Act of 1862, ch. 75, 12 Stat.
392, and stretching into the early 20th century, Congress
enacted a series of land-grant statutes aimed at settling the
American frontier. One of these was the Pittman Act.
That Act sought to succeed where earlier homestead laws
had failed: promoting development and population growth in
the State of Nevada. H. R. Rep. No. 286, 66th Cong., 1st
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for Associated Gen-
eral Contractors of America et al. by Ross E. Davies; and for the National
Stone, Sand & Gravel Association by Laura Lindley and Christopher G.
Hayes.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
179 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
Sess., 2 (1919).1 It was thought that Nevada’s lack of sur-
face water resources was hindering its agricultural progress.
Ibid. After rejecting various proposals to directly fund ex-
ploration for underground water, Congress enacted the Pitt-
man Act to encourage private citizens to prospect for water
in Nevada. Id., at 1.
Nevada lies in the heart of the Great Basin, that part of
the United States lying roughly between the Sierra Nevada
Range on the west and the Wasatch and other mountain
ranges on the east. The western face of the Sierra Nevada
blocks rain-bearing winds off the Pacific Ocean from reaching
the Great Basin, forming a rain shadow over the entire re-
gion. Nevada has, on the average, less precipitation than
any other State in the Union. This is one reason why most
of its rivers, instead of eventually flowing into the sea, disap-
pear into “sinks.” 5 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 442
(15th ed. 1985); Department of Agriculture Yearbook, Cli-
mate and Man 987–988 (1941) (cited in Nevada v. United
States, 463 U. S. 110, 114 (1983)).
The Pittman Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior
to designate certain “nonmineral” lands 2 in Nevada, on
which settlers could obtain permits to drill for water.
§§ 1–2, 41 Stat. 293–294. Any settler who could demon-
strate successful irrigation of at least 20 acres of crops was
eligible for a land grant, or patent, of up to 640 acres. § 5,
id., at 294. Of central importance here, each patent issued
under the Act was required to contain “a reservation to the
United States of all the coal and other valuable minerals in
the lands . . . , together with the right to prospect for, mine,
and remove the same.” § 8, id., at 295. By virtue of this
1 The population of Nevada in 1910 was only 81,875; by 1920, it had fallen
to 77,407. Less than 11% of Nevada’s 112,000 square miles of land was
privately owned. H. R. Rep. No. 286, at 2.
2 “Nonmineral” lands are “more valuable for agricultural or other pur-
poses than for the minerals [they] contai[n].” Watt v. Western Nuclear,
Inc., 462 U. S. 36, 48, n. 9 (1983).

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
180 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
reservation, the United States was free to dispose of the
“coal and other valuable mineral deposits in such lands” in
accordance with “the provisions of the coal and mineral land
laws in force at the time of such disposal.” Ibid.
The Pittman Act failed to significantly advance agricul-
tural development in Nevada, S. Rep. No. 1282, 88th Cong.,
2d Sess., 1 (1964), and Congress repealed it in 1964, Pub.
L. 88–417, 78 Stat. 389. The repealing legislation, however,
expressly reserved the rights of existing patentees. Ibid.
Two such patentees, Newton and Mabel Butler, were the
predecessors-in-interest of the petitioners in this case. In
1940, the Butlers obtained a patent for 560 acres of land in
Lincoln County, some 65 miles north of Las Vegas. As re-
quired by the Act, the patent reserved the “coal and other
valuable minerals” to the United States. Common sand and
gravel were plentiful and visible on the surface of the But-
lers’ land, but there was no commercial market for them due
to Nevada’s sparse population and the land’s remote location.
App. 10, 11.
Earl Williams acquired the Butler property in 1993. By
that time, the expansion of Las Vegas had created a commer-
cial market for the sand and gravel on the land. Shortly
after Williams began extracting the sand and gravel, how-
ever, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) served him
with trespass notices pursuant to 43 CFR § 9239.0–7 (1993)
(providing that any unauthorized removal of “mineral mate-
rials” from public lands is “an act of trespass”). When Wil-
liams challenged the notices, the BLM ruled that by remov-
ing sand and gravel Williams had trespassed against the
Government’s reserved interest in the “valuable minerals”
on the property. The Interior Board of Land Appeals af-
firmed that decision. Earl Williams, 140 I. B. L. A. 295
(1997). Meanwhile, petitioner BedRoc Limited, LLC (Bed-
Roc), acquired the Butler property from Williams in 1995.3
3 In 1996, BedRoc conveyed 40 of its 560 acres to petitioner Western
Elite, Inc.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
181 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
BedRoc continued to remove sand and gravel under an in-
terim agreement with the Department of the Interior, pend-
ing final resolution of the ownership dispute.
Petitioners filed an action in the United States District
Court seeking to quiet title to the sand and gravel on the
Butler property. The District Court granted summary
judgment to the Government, holding that the contested
sand and gravel are “valuable minerals” reserved to the
United States by the Pittman Act. 50 F. Supp. 2d 1001 (Nev.
1999). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit affirmed, relying primarily on the legislative history
of the Pittman Act and our decision in Watt v. Western Nu-
clear, Inc., 462 U. S. 36 (1983). 314 F. 3d 1080 (2002). We
granted certiorari, 539 U. S. 986 (2003), and now reverse.
In Western Nuclear, supra, we construed the mineral
reservation in the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916
(SRHA), 39 Stat. 862, 43 U. S. C. § 291 et seq.—“the most
important . . . land-grant statut[e] enacted in the early
1900’s.” 462 U. S., at 47. Unlike the Pittman Act, the
SRHA was not limited to Nevada; it applied to any “public
lands” the Secretary of the Interior designated as “ ‘stock-
raising lands.’ ” 43 U. S. C. § 291 (1976 ed.) (repealed by
Pub. L. 94–579, 90 Stat. 2787). A person could obtain a pat-
ent under the SRHA if he resided on stockraising lands for
three years, §291, and “ma[de] permanent improvements
upon the land . . . tending to increase the value of the [land]
for stock-raising purposes,” § 293 (repealed by Pub. L. 94–
579, 90 Stat. 2787). The SRHA’s mineral reservation was
identical to the Pittman Act’s in every respect, save one:
Whereas the SRHA reserved to the United States “all the
coal and other minerals,” § 299 (2000 ed.), the Pittman Act
reserved “all the coal and other valuable minerals,” § 8, 41
Stat. 295 (emphasis added).
The question before us in Western Nuclear was “whether
gravel found on lands patented under the [SRHA] is a min-
eral reserved to the United States.” 462 U. S., at 38. A

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
182 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
closely divided Court held that it is. Id., at 60. After de-
termining that “neither the dictionary nor the legal under-
standing of the term ‘minerals’ that prevailed in 1916 sheds
much light on the question before us,” we turned to the pur-
pose and history of the SRHA. Id., at 46–47. We observed
that the SRHA, like other land-grant Acts containing min-
eral reservations, sought to “facilitate development of both
surface and subsurface resources.” Id., at 49–52. We
therefore reasoned that “the determination of whether a par-
ticular substance is included in the surface estate or the min-
eral estate should be made in light of the use of the surface
estate that Congress contemplated.” Id., at 52. Accord-
ingly, we interpreted the SRHA’s mineral reservation to in-
clude “substances that are mineral in character (i. e., that are
inorganic), that can be removed from the soil, that can be
used for commercial purposes, and that there is no reason to
suppose were intended to be included in the surface estate.”
Id., at 53. Because we thought it unlikely that Congress
would have made the exploitation of gravel deposits depend-
ent on farmers and ranchers “whose interests were known
to lie elsewhere,” and because gravel met our other criteria,
we concluded that it is indeed a “mineral” reserved to the
United States. Id., at 55–60.4
The Government argues that our rationale in Western Nu-
clear compels the outcome in this case, notwithstanding the
Pittman Act’s seemingly narrower reservation of “valuable”
minerals. Petitioners, for their part, argue that Western
4 Four Justices vigorously disagreed with the Court’s approach. Id., at
60–72 (Powell, J., joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, and O’Connor, JJ.,
dissenting). The dissenters pointed out that at the time the SRHA was
enacted the Department of the Interior “had ruled consistently that gravel
was not a mineral under the general mining laws.” Id., at 62–67. Fur-
thermore, the ultimate congressional purpose behind the SRHA was set-
tling the West, not stockraising, the dissenters argued, and this purpose
would have been thwarted if potential settlers thought the Government
had reserved “commonplace substances that actually constitute much of
the soil.” Id., at 71–72.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
183 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
Nuclear should be distinguished on this ground or, in the
alternative, overruled altogether. While we share the con-
cerns expressed in the Western Nuclear dissent, see n. 4,
supra, we decline to overrule our recent precedent. By the
same token, we will not extend Western Nuclear’s holding
to conclude that sand and gravel are “valuable minerals.”
Whatever the correctness of Western Nuclear’s broad con-
struction of the term “minerals,” we are not free to so expan-
sively interpret the Pittman Act’s reservation. In Western
Nuclear, we had no choice but to speculate about congres-
sional intent with respect to the scope of the amorphous
term “minerals.” Here, by contrast, Congress has textually
narrowed the scope of the term by using the modifier
“valuable.” 5
The preeminent canon of statutory interpretation requires
us to “presume that [the] legislature says in a statute what
it means and means in a statute what it says there.” Con-
necticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253–254 (1992).
Thus, our inquiry begins with the statutory text, and ends
there as well if the text is unambiguous. Lamie v. United
States Trustee, 540 U. S. 526, 534 (2004); Hartford Under-
writers Ins. Co. v. Union Planters Bank, N. A., 530 U. S. 1,
6 (2000); Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U. S. 432, 438
(1999); Connecticut Nat. Bank, supra, at 254. We think the
term “valuable” makes clear that Congress did not intend
5 Despite the textual difference, Justice Stevens nonetheless finds
Western Nuclear dispositive because, according to him, “the Court’s inter-
pretation of the term ‘mineral’ in the SRHA included the requirement that
the material be valuable.” Post, at 190–191 (dissenting opinion). That is
not quite correct. Western Nuclear defined “minerals,” in part, as sub-
stances “that can be used for commercial purposes” and that “have sepa-
rate value” from the soil. 462 U. S., at 53–54. However, as the remain-
der of our opinion explains, the minimal inquiry into whether a substance
might at some point have separate value from the soil and might, in the
abstract, be susceptible of commercial use is a far different inquiry from
whether the substance is a “valuable mineral” as Congress used the term
in 1919.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
184 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
to include sand and gravel in the Pittman Act’s mineral
reservation.
“In interpreting statutory mineral reservations like the
one at issue here, we have emphasized that Congress ‘was
dealing with a practical subject in a practical way’ and that
it intended the terms of the reservation to be understood in
‘their ordinary and popular sense.’ ” Amoco Production Co.
v. Southern Ute Tribe, 526 U. S. 865, 873 (1999) (quoting
Burke v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 234 U. S. 669, 679 (1914)).
Importantly, the proper inquiry focuses on the ordinary
meaning of the reservation at the time Congress enacted it.
Amoco Production Co., supra, at 874; Leo Sheep Co. v.
United States, 440 U. S. 668, 682 (1979) (land-grant statutes
should be interpreted in light of “the condition of the country
when the acts were passed” (internal quotation marks omit-
ted)); see also Perrin v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979)
(“[U]nless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as
taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning” at
the time Congress enacted the statute). Because the Pitt-
man Act applied only to Nevada, the ultimate question is
whether the sand and gravel found in Nevada were com-
monly regarded as “valuable minerals” in 1919.
Common sense tells us, and the Government does not con-
test, that the answer to that question is an emphatic “No.”
Sand and gravel were, and are, abundant throughout Ne-
vada; they have no intrinsic value; and they were commer-
cially worthless in 1919 due to Nevada’s sparse population
and lack of development.6 Thus, even if Nevada’s sand and
gravel were regarded as minerals, no one would have mis-
taken them for valuable minerals. The Government argues
only that sand and gravel were commercially marketable in
other parts of the United States during World War I and
that there is now a market for sand and gravel in some parts
of Nevada. As we have explained, this evidence is simply
6 Indeed, as petitioners aptly point out, “[e]ven the most enterprising
settler could not have sold sand in the desert.” Brief for Petitioners 6.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
185 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
irrelevant to the proper inquiry into the meaning of the stat-
utory mineral reservation. Cf. Amoco Production Co., 526
U. S., at 873–880 (relying on the popular meaning of “coal”
in 1909 and 1910 to hold that a reservation of “coal” does not
include coalbed methane gas). Because we readily conclude
that the “most natural interpretation” of the mineral reser-
vation does not encompass sand and gravel, we “need not
consider the applicability of the canon that ambiguities in
land grants are construed in favor of the sovereign.” Id.,
at 880.
The statutory context of the Pittman Act’s mineral reser-
vation further confirms its ordinary meaning. The sentence
directly following the reservation provides that the reserved
“valuable mineral deposits . . . shall be subject to disposal by
the United States in accordance with the provisions of the
. . . mineral land laws in force at the time of such disposal.”
§ 8, 41 Stat. 295. Here, Congress was explicitly cross-
referencing the General Mining Act of 1872, currently codi-
fied at Rev. Stat. § 2319, 30 U. S. C. § 22. Then, as now, the
General Mining Act provided that “all valuable mineral de-
posits in lands belonging to the United States . . . shall be
free and open to exploration and purchase . . . under regula-
tions prescribed by law.” Ibid. We can therefore infer that
the reserved “valuable minerals” in Pittman Act lands were
the same class of minerals that could be located and disposed
of under the General Mining Act. Cf. Western Nuclear, 462
U. S., at 59 (drawing same inference from nearly identical
mineral reservation).
It is beyond dispute that when the Pittman Act became
law in 1919, common sand and gravel could not constitute a
locatable “valuable mineral deposit” under the General Min-
ing Act. The Secretary of the Interior had held as much in
Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 L. D. 310 (1910), see Western
Nuclear, supra, at 45 (discussing Zimmerman); 462 U. S., at
63–65 (Powell, J., dissenting) (same), and this remained the
Department’s position until 1929, when it overruled Zimmer-

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
186 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
man in Layman v. Ellis, 52 L. D. 714, see, e. g., Western
Nuclear, supra, at 65–69 (Powell, J., dissenting); Robert L.
Beery, 83 I. D. 249, 253 (1976) (“Prior to 1929 sand and gravel
were not considered locatable under the general mining
law”).7 Thus, in the unlikely event that some ambitious
prospector had sought a patent from the United States in
1919 to extract sand and gravel from Pittman Act lands, the
Secretary of the Interior would have flatly refused him.
The Government is correct that the Western Nuclear
Court sidestepped the impact of this line of reasoning by
relying on the ambiguity of the term “minerals” and the pos-
sibility that Congress was not aware of Interior’s Zimmer-
man decision, see 462 U. S., at 45–47. But we decline to
extend that approach beyond the SRHA. In our analysis,
the statutory structure of the Pittman Act convincingly re-
inforces the unambiguous meaning of the term “valuable
minerals.”
Notwithstanding the contemporaneous plain meaning of
the Pittman Act’s mineral reservation, the Government ar-
gues that the Act’s legislative history counsels us to give
“valuable minerals” precisely the same meaning we ascribed
to “minerals” in Western Nuclear. Because we have held
that the text of the statutory reservation clearly excludes
sand and gravel, we have no occasion to resort to legislative
history. See, e. g., Lamie, 540 U. S., at 534, 536; Hartford
Underwriters, 530 U. S., at 6; Hughes Aircraft Co., 525 U. S.,
at 438; Connecticut Nat. Bank, 503 U. S., at 254. Having
declined to extend Western Nuclear’s rationale to a statute
where the plain meaning will not support it, we will not
allow it in through the back door by presuming that “the
legislature was ignorant of the meaning of the language
7 Congress restored the Zimmerman rule in 1955 when it enacted the
Surface Resources Act, § 3, 69 Stat. 368, 30 U. S. C. § 611 (“No deposit of
common varieties of sand [and] gravel . . . shall be deemed a valuable
mineral deposit within the meaning of the mining laws of the United
States . . .”).

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
187 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
it employed.” Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, 152
(1883).8
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit is therefore reversed, and the case is re-
manded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Breyer joins, con-
curring in the judgment.
I agree with Justice Stevens that the mineral reserva-
tion provision in the Pittman Underground Water Act of
1919 (Pittman Act or Act) cannot be meaningfully distin-
guished from the analogous provision in the Stock-Raising
Homestead Act of 1916 (SRHA). As Justice Stevens
points out, the term “minerals” in the Pittman Act provision
is only twice modified by the adjective “valuable,” which
“suggest[s] that the terms ‘valuable minerals’ and ‘minerals’
were intended to be synonymous.” Post, at 191 (dissenting
8 While Justice Stevens does not contest the plain meaning of the
Pittman Act’s mineral reservation, he nonetheless takes us to task for
“refusing to examine” the legislative history proffered by the Government
and thereby engaging in a “deliberately uninformed” and “unconstrained”
method of statutory interpretation. Post, at 190–192. Of course, accept-
ing Justice Stevens’ approach would require a radical abandonment of
our longstanding precedents that permit resort to legislative history only
when necessary to interpret ambiguous statutory text. Chief Justice
Marshall in 1805 stated the principle that definitively resolves this case
nearly 200 years later: “Where a law is plain and unambiguous, whether
it be expressed in general or limited terms, the legislature should be in-
tended to mean what they have plainly expressed, and consequently no
room is left for construction.” United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch 358,
399. We thus cannot accept Justice Stevens’ invitation to presume that
Congress expressed itself in a single House Committee Report rather than
in the unambiguous statutory text approved by both Houses and signed
by the President. We fail to see, moreover, how a court exercises uncon-
strained discretion when it carries out its “sole function” with respect to
an unambiguous statute, namely, to “enforce it according to its terms.”
Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 485 (1917).

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
188 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
opinion). I concur in the judgment, however, because I be-
lieve that mineral reservations pursuant to both the Pittman
Act and the SRHA do not include sand and gravel.
To reach its result without reconsidering Watt v. Western
Nuclear, Inc., 462 U. S. 36 (1983), the plurality relies heavily
on the Pittman Act’s use of the term “valuable minerals,”
contrasting this with the SRHA’s use of the term “minerals.”
This difference, the plurality holds, makes the scope of the
Pittman Act’s mineral reservation provision both more clear
and more narrow than that of the SRHA. See ante, at 183.
Placing so much emphasis on the modifier “valuable” in the
Pittman Act, however, ignores the fact that the Act uses the
terms “valuable minerals” and “minerals” interchangeably.
It also implies that the Court erred in Western Nuclear, not
by interpreting the term “minerals” too broadly to include
sand and gravel (as the plurality suggests here, see ante, at
183), but by interpreting “minerals” too narrowly by reading
into the term a requirement that the minerals can be used
for commercial purposes.* If the word “valuable” were the
textual source of a commercial purpose requirement, then
the SRHA’s lack of that modifier would strongly imply that
the SRHA contains no commercial purpose requirement.
Because the Court in Western Nuclear properly interpreted
the term “minerals” to contain a commercial purpose re-
quirement, I would not put so much emphasis on the mod-
ifier “valuable.”
I disagree, however, with the Court’s conclusion in West-
ern Nuclear that sand and gravel are “minerals” under the
*Indeed, the Court in Western Nuclear at times suggested an even nar-
rower definition of “mineral,” stating that “Congress plainly contemplated
that mineral deposits on SRHA lands would be subject to location under
the mining laws.” 462 U. S., at 51. Those laws allowed individuals “to
locate claims to federal land containing ‘valuable mineral deposits.’ ” Id.,
at 50–51 (emphasis added). Hence, even minerals indisputably considered
“valuable” might fall outside a mineral reservation under the SRHA if the
deposit itself was not substantial enough to be “valuable.”

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
189 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Stevens, J., dissenting
SRHA merely because, hypothetically, at the time of the pas-
sage of the SRHA, they could have been used for commercial
purposes, 462 U. S., at 55. Because the SRHA and the Pitt-
man Act should be construed similarly, the plurality’s reason-
ing with respect to the Pittman Act cannot be confined to
that Act and naturally carries over to the SRHA. As the
plurality points out, both common sense and the “statutory
context” of the Pittman Act’s enactment confirm the view
that sand and gravel are not included within the Pittman
Act’s mineral reservations, since sand and gravel were not
understood to be “valuable minerals” at the time of the pas-
sage of the Act. See ante, at 184–185. Likewise, sand and
gravel, with respect to SRHA lands, were not considered to
be susceptible of commercial use at the time Congress passed
the SRHA.
Although the Court in Western Nuclear incorrectly ap-
plied its definition of “minerals” to include sand and gravel,
the Court is typically reluctant to overrule decisions involv-
ing statute interpretation because “stare decisis concerns
are at their acme in cases involving property and contract
rights.” State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20 (1997). Be-
cause the Government identifies significant reliance interests
that would be upset by overruling Western Nuclear, I do
not advocate doing so. The Pittman Act, however, involves
substantially less land than the SRHA, and the Government
does not identify any significant reliance interests that would
be unsettled by our failing to extend Western Nuclear’s rea-
soning. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the
Court of Appeals and decline to extend Western Nuclear’s
faulty reasoning beyond the SRHA.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter and Jus-
tice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (SRHA or Act)
authorized the settlement of homesteads on “lands the sur-
face of which” was “chiefly valuable for grazing and raising

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
190 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Stevens, J., dissenting
forage crops” and “not susceptible of irrigation from any
known source of water supply.” 43 U. S. C. § 292 (1976 ed.).
Congress included in the statute “a reservation to the United
States of all the coal and other minerals in the lands . . .
entered and patented” under the Act. 43 U. S. C. § 299 (2000
ed.). Two decades ago, in a closely divided decision, we held
that gravel found on lands patented under the Act is a min-
eral reserved to the United States. Watt v. Western Nu-
clear, Inc., 462 U. S. 36, 55 (1983).
The Pittman Underground Water Act of 1919 (Pittman
Act), 41 Stat. 293, enacted just three years after the SRHA,
was designed to encourage the reclamation of lands in the
State of Nevada that were “not known to be susceptible of
successful irrigation at a reasonable cost from any known
source of water supply.” H. R. Rep. No. 286, 66th Cong., 1st
Sess., 1 (1919). Today the Court decides that the reserva-
tion of minerals in § 8 of the Pittman Act does not include
gravel. I think it highly unlikely that Congress would re-
serve its ownership of sand and gravel in the millions of
acres of land in the West that were covered by the SRHA
and not do so for the land in Nevada covered by the Pittman
Act. Indeed, the House Committee Report describing the
scope of the mineral reservation in § 8 of the Pittman Act
plainly states: “Section 8 of the bill contains the same reser-
vations of minerals, with the facility for prospecting for and
developing and mining such minerals as was provided in the
[SRHA].” Ibid. A clearer expression of Congress’ intent
would be hard to find.
The plurality opinion rests entirely on the textual differ-
ence between the SRHA’s reservation of “ ‘all the coal and
other minerals’ ” and the Pittman Act’s reservation of “ ‘all
the coal and other valuable minerals.’ ” Ante, at 181. But
that holding ignores the fact that in Western Nuclear the
Court’s interpretation of the term “mineral” in the SRHA

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
191 Cite as: 541 U. S. 176 (2004)
Stevens, J., dissenting
included the requirement that the material be valuable.*
Moreover, the term “mineral” or “minerals” appears eight
times in § 8 of the Pittman Act, and only twice is it modified
by the adjective “valuable,” strongly suggesting that the
terms “valuable minerals” and “minerals” were intended to
be synonymous. Thus, the text of § 8 and its legislative his-
tory, as well as both the reasoning and the result in Western
Nuclear, all support the conclusion that Congress intended
the mineral reservation in these two statutes to be the same.
The single word “valuable,” in short, cannot support the
weight The Chief Justice places on it.
As a matter of public policy, there is no reason why Con-
gress would enact a broader reservation in either statute.
The policy of including sand and gravel in the reservation
may well be unwise, and, indeed, the majority in Western
Nuclear may have misinterpreted Congress’ intent in 1916.
*“Given Congress’ understanding that the surface of SRHA lands would
be used for ranching and farming, we interpret the mineral reservation in
the Act to include substances that are mineral in character (i. e., that are
inorganic), that can be removed from the soil, that can be used for commer-
cial purposes, and that there is no reason to suppose were intended to be
included in the surface estate. See 1 American Law of Mining § 3.26
[(1982)] (‘A reservation of minerals should be considered to sever from the
surface all mineral substances which can be taken from the soil and which
have a separate value’). Cf. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188
U. S. [526, 536–537 (1903)] (‘mineral lands include not merely metalliferous
lands, but all such as are chiefly valuable for their deposits of a mineral
character, which are useful in the arts or valuable for purposes of manufac-
ture’); United States v. Isbell Construction Co., [78 I. D. 385, 390 (1971)]
(‘the reservation of minerals should be considered to sever from the sur-
face all mineral substances which can be taken from the soil and have a
separate value’) (emphasis in original). This interpretation of the mineral
reservation best serves the congressional purpose of encouraging the con-
current development of both surface and subsurface resources, for ranch-
ing and farming do not ordinarily entail the extraction of mineral sub-
stances that can be taken from the soil and that have separate value.”
Western Nuclear, 462 U. S., at 53–54.

541US1 Unit: $U36 [05-08-06 20:46:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN
192 BEDROC LIMITED, LLC v. UNITED STATES
Stevens, J., dissenting
Neither of those possibilities, however, provides an adequate
justification for substituting the plurality’s appraisal today of
Congress’ judgment for the view that prevailed in a decision
that has been settled law for two decades. This conclusion
is fortified by the well-recognized “need for certainty and
predictability where land titles are concerned.” Leo Sheep
Co. v. United States, 440 U. S. 668, 687 (1979).
In refusing to examine the legislative history that provides
a clear answer to the question whether Congress intended
the scope of the mineral reservations in these two statutes
to be identical, the plurality abandons one of the most val-
uable tools of judicial decisionmaking. As Justice Aharon
Barak of the Israel Supreme Court perceptively has ex-
plained, the “minimalist” judge “who holds that the purpose
of the statute may be learned only from its language” retains
greater discretion than the judge who “will seek guidance
from every reliable source.” Judicial Discretion 62 (Y. Kauf-
mann transl. 1989). A method of statutory interpretation
that is deliberately uninformed, and hence unconstrained, in-
creases the risk that the judge’s own policy preferences will
affect the decisional process. The policy choice at issue in
this case is surely one that should be made either by Con-
gress itself or by the executive agency administering the
Pittman Act. Congress’ acceptance of the holding in West-
ern Nuclear for the past two decades should control our deci-
sion, and any residual doubt should be eliminated by the def-
erence owed to the executive agency that has consistently
construed the mineral reservations in land-grant statutes as
including sand and gravel. See 462 U. S., at 56–57 (citing
rulings of the Department of the Interior).
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.