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

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)

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.
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