Should the BLM Survey the Red River to Settle Disputes Over Land Ownership? (H.R. 428)
Do you support or oppose this bill?
What is H.R. 428?
(Updated August 26, 2021)
This bill would direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to commission a survey that identifies the boundary of the Red River’s South Bank with respect to land along a specified 118-mile stretch of the Red River in Oklahoma and Texas. The survey would use the “gradient boundary survey” method and be completed within two years of this bill’s enactment by licensed gradient boundary surveyors under the direction of Texas and Oklahoma land offices. At issue is whether private property owners face disputes from the federal government over the land’s ownership, because BLM believes some land (up to 30,000 acres) may be public domain but the agency has never surveyed most of the Red River.
The BLM would submit its survey to the Oklahoma and Texas land offices after it’s completed, and the offices would have 60 days to approve it. The same process would be used to survey individual parcels of land in the specified area. After a survey for an individual parcel has been approved, the office would give the BLM a notice of their approval and a copy of the survey along with any related field notes. Surveys of the South Bank boundary line and any survey of an individual parcel of land wouldn’t be submitted to the BLM for approval.
Argument in favor
The BLM needs to survey this stretch of the Red River to avoid disputes over land ownership, since it claimed that some of the land may be public domain without ever surveying all of it. Landowners and taxpayers deserve certainty over this issue.
Argument opposed
The BLM has surveyed parts of the Red River area that would be surveyed under this legislation, and that’s enough to settle questions surrounding the land’s ownership. The states of Oklahoma and Texas should be excluded from this process.
Impact
People who own land along contested parts of the Red River; Oklahoma and Texas; and the BLM.
Cost of H.R. 428
A CBO cost estimate.
Additional Info
In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) introduced this bill to end questions about the federal government’s ownership of disputed land along the Red River:
“Private property owners should never have to worry about the federal government coming in and taking away their land, especially land that has never been properly surveyed. Our bills will help provide these property owners the certainty that they deserve to know where public lands end and private lands begin.”
This legislation has the support of 12 cosponsors in the House, all of whom are Republicans from Oklahoma and Texas.
Of Note: The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the boundary of the Red River in 1923, giving the northern half of the river bottom to Oklahoma and the southern half to the federal government, with Texas getting none. The BLM now considers over a mile of dry land in Texas as part of the riverbed.
Media:
Summary by Eric Revell
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