Bill Text: TX HCR104 | 2017-2018 | 85th Legislature | Introduced

Texas House Concurrent Resolution 104 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Urging Congress to require the Bureau of Land Management to commission a gradient boundary survey of the south bank of the Red River.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2017-03-31 - Referred to State & Federal Power & Responsibility, Select [HCR104 Detail]

Download: Texas-2017-HCR104-Introduced.html

	85R12724 BPG-D

	By: Frank	H.C.R. No. 104



	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, The United States Bureau of Land Management is
	laying claim to a 116-mile stretch of land along the Red River in
	Clay, Wilbarger, and Wichita Counties, but Texas property owners
	have lived and worked on this land for generations, and many hold
	deeds and titles dating back to the 19th century; and
	WHEREAS, In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase recognized the south
	bank of the Red River as the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma;
	frequent shifting of the channel gave rise to numerous disputes
	over the years, and following a 1922 lawsuit, the Supreme Court
	found that the northern half of the river bottom belonged to
	Oklahoma and the southern half belonged to the federal government,
	while Texas began on the south bank, at the river's southern
	gradient boundary; and
	WHEREAS, The Bureau of Land Management began resurveying the
	land along the Texas-Oklahoma border in 2008, and Texas residents
	were shocked to find survey markers on their property, far from the
	river; inexplicably, the bureau had extended what it considered the
	federal riverbed roughly a mile onto dry land, absurdly placing
	houses, barns, fences, and livestock in the middle of an imaginary
	body of water; the bureau further alarmed local property owners by
	publishing a resource management plan for newly claimed land, along
	with maps and other information throwing into question ownership of
	between 46,000 and 90,000 acres; and
	WHEREAS, The federal government has refused to clarify the
	precise extent of the land it purports to own, and the great
	uncertainty has clouded title claims, reducing land values,
	threatening private capital investment, and causing tremendous
	anxiety about the future of lives and livelihoods; landowners have
	asked the Bureau of Land Management to perform a gradient boundary
	survey, as required in the 1923 Supreme Court decision, in order to
	firmly identify the south bank and restore confidence in titles;
	the agency, however, has refused to perform such a survey; and
	WHEREAS, Casting landowners into this legal limbo violates
	the due process guarantees of the United States Constitution, and
	in January 2017, the United States House of Representatives
	responded by passing H.R. 428, the "Red River Gradient Boundary
	Survey Act"; this legislation requires the secretary of the
	interior, acting through the bureau director, to commission a
	survey to identify the south bank boundary line, conducted by
	surveyors selected and directed jointly by Texas and Oklahoma and
	using the gradient boundary survey methodology established in the
	1923 Supreme Court decision; and
	WHEREAS, The actions of the Bureau of Land Management
	regarding the south bank of the Red River are in direct conflict
	with the fundamental rights of Americans to private property
	ownership free from the unconstitutional threat of seizure by the
	federal government, and the owners of Texas land newly claimed by
	the bureau deserve a fair and definitive resolution of the boundary
	dispute; now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas
	hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to require the
	Bureau of Land Management to commission a gradient boundary survey
	of the south bank of the Red River to be conducted in accordance
	with Oklahoma v. Texas, 261 U.S. 340 (1923) by surveyors selected
	and directed by Texas and Oklahoma, and to forbid any federal
	seizure of property in this area before the completion of such a
	survey; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
	the secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, to
	the director of the United States Bureau of Land Management, to the
	president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.