In the case of State of Alaska v. United States, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S., resolving a long-standing dispute over submerged lands off Alaska's Arctic coast. The state had claimed ownership to three million acres of underwater land on its continental shelf under the Submerged Lands Act (SLA) which grants coastal states rights to offshore resources up to three miles from their coastline. However, this claim was contested by federal authorities who argued that these areas were not part of Alaska at the time it became a state and therefore did not fall within SLA provisions. The court agreed with this argument stating that when Congress admitted Alaska into union in 1959, it intended for only those lands beneath navigable waters within state boundaries be transferred to new states; thus excluding outer-continental shelf lands from being considered as such.

In the dissenting opinion for the case of State of Alaska v. United States, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling that denied Alaska ownership over submerged lands along its Arctic Coastline. She argued that Congress had intended for states to have control over their own submerged lands when it passed the Submerged Lands Act in 1953 and that this intention should be respected. Furthermore, she contended that previous Supreme Court decisions supported state ownership over similar types of land. The majority’s interpretation was inconsistent with these precedents and undermined federalism principles by limiting state sovereignty unnecessarily.