The United States v. Louisiana et al., also known as the Louisiana Boundary Case, was a Supreme Court case in 1974 that dealt with issues of state and federal jurisdiction over offshore resources. The dispute arose when several Gulf Coast states claimed ownership of submerged lands and mineral rights extending three leagues (approximately nine miles) from their coastlines into the Gulf of Mexico. However, the U.S. government argued that these areas were part of the Outer Continental Shelf, thus under federal control according to the Submerged Lands Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act passed by Congress in 1953. In its decision, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government's interpretation asserting that all submerged lands more than three nautical miles off a state’s coastline fell under U.S jurisdiction unless explicitly stated otherwise by Congress or international treaty agreements. This ruling significantly impacted oil drilling operations in those regions as it determined who would receive royalties from such activities - individual states or Federal Government.

The dissenting opinion in the United States v. Louisiana case argued that the Supreme Court's decision to award submerged lands and their resources to federal control was a misinterpretation of both historical precedent and constitutional law. The dissenters believed that these lands should be under state jurisdiction, as they had been for much of American history prior to this ruling. They contended that states' rights were being undermined by an overreaching federal government, which was seizing control of valuable natural resources without proper justification or compensation for the affected states. Furthermore, they questioned whether Congress even possessed the authority to regulate these offshore areas under its commerce powers given their distance from U.S shores and lack of connection with interstate commerce.