By Jessica Domel
Field Editor

The U.S. House of Representatives today will consider legislation that could help return land along the Red River to its Texas landowners. House Resolution 2130, the Red River Private Property Protection Act, was sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas.

The resolution declares the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is part of the Department of the Interior, disclaims “any right, title and interest to certain lands along a stretch of the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma located south of the South Bank boundary line.”

The resolution also states that the surveys conducted by BLM before the enactment of the act will have no impact in determining the South Bank boundary line on the river.

As the unofficial border between Texas and Oklahoma, the Red River’s movement over time has caused disputes in where Texas landowners’ land ends and Oklahoma begins.

In the 1980s, a lawsuit between Texas landowner Tommy Henderson and an Oklahoman landowner led to a judge granting the land in the middle of the river to the BLM.

Recently, the BLM claimed since the river’s boundaries have moved, the area under BLM’s purview has also grown-drawing the ire of many Texas landowners.

Through Thornberry’s bill, Texas landowners are hoping to save their land from BLM’s grasp.

HR 2130, if passed, will also require the BLM to submit its surveys to the Texas General Land Office instead of the BLM for approval in consultation with the Oklahoma Commissioners of the Land Office.

A full text of the HR can be found here: http://1.usa.gov/1NbtJOI.

In addition to the legislation, Texas landowners along the Red River are fighting back against the land grab. Seven landowners, the counties of Clay, Wichita and Wilbarger and others have joined in a lawsuit with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for the American Future against the Bureau of Land Management for the unconstitutional seizure of their private land.

Texas Farm Bureau welcomes efforts to resolve the issue in favor of private property owners whose rights are being threatened by the BLM.