Bill to protect Red River landowners from Obama Administration passes House

The “Red River Private Property Protection Act,” H.R. 2130, introduced by U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon), today passed the House of Representatives. The bill, which passed by a vote of 253-177, would provide legal certainty to landowners by ending any questions about the federal government’s ownership of disputed land along the Red River. 

• Commissioning a survey of the entire 116-mile stretch of contested area along the Red River using the gradient boundary survey method developed and backed by the Supreme Court to find the proper boundary between private and federally owned land. 
• Ordering that the survey be conducted within two years by Licensed State Land Surveyors and approved by the Texas General Land Office in consultation with The Commissioners of the Land Office in Oklahoma.
• Allowing landowners who hold the proper right, title, and/or interest in the contested area to appeal the determination of the survey to an administrative law judge.  Landowners are also able to file for a modified Color-of-Title Act land patent request for public land that has been held in good faith and in peaceful adverse possession for $1.25 per acre.
• Preventing any contested land from being included in the Resource Management Plan outside of the provisions in the bill.
• Requiring the BLM to sell the remaining federal lands along the Red River at no less than market value and setting forth procedures for offering adjacent landowners the first rights of refusal. The bill also explicitly states that nothing in the Act shall be construed to modify the Red River Boundary Compact  and that the interest of Texas and Oklahoma and the sovereignty rights of the federally recognized Indian tribes north of the South Bank boundary line will not be affected.

You can download and use video of Mac speaking in support of his bill on the floor of the House of Representatives here.