CHQ:
The Texas – Oklahoma border on the Red River is the latest flashpoint in the growing property rights war between overreaching federal bureaucrats and private citizen landowners.
Breitbart’s Bob Price reports that the Bureau of Land Management (the rogue federal agency that precipitated the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada) is considering seizing 90,000 acres of private land along the Red River that forms part of the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
The BLM is now contemplating the same strategy it used some 30 years ago to deprive Texas rancher Tommy Henderson of 140 acres of his property without paying him one cent to gain control of more land in the Red River area.
According to Representative Mac Thornberry’s staff, the issue of the ownership of this land dates back to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. When the BLM made the claim on Henderson’s land, their position was that Texas never had the authority to deed the land to private parties and therefore it would fall under federal control.
According to Breitbart’s Price, the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to settle the boundary dispute in Oklahoma v. Texas and declared the boundary to be defined by wooden stakes set on the river bank. But as Price observed, that boundary apparently lasted no longer than anyone could expect wooden stakes to last in the shifting sands of a meandering river. In 2000, Texas and Oklahoma’s legislatures agreed to a “Red River Boundary Compact” which defined the border between the states as the southern vegetation line.
In 2000, Texas and Oklahoma’s legislatures agreed to a “Red River Boundary Compact” which defined the border between the states as the southern vegetation line. According to the Constitution, Congress must ratify agreements of this kind between the states (Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3) which was done when Congressman Thornberry introduced House Joint Resolution 72 during the 106th Congress which was passed and signed by the President to become Public Law No: 106-288.
Ostensibly the issue that has once again brought the BLM into the picture is a state dispute between Texas and Oklahoma, and federal rights accrued through the 212 year-old Louisiana Purchase, but the real issue is not whether the land in question is rightly or wrongly in private hands; it is who controls the public lands in Texas.
Texas is the only western state with no significant federal landholdings outside of parks and military installations because when the Republic of Texas came into the Union it claimed title to all the lands not then in private hands within the state borders.
The Republic of Texas had a policy of attracting settlers and encouraging them to build wealth through the protection of private property rights and eventually those Texas lands were deeded to private parties.
In many cases the lands currently eyed by the federal government have been in Texas families for generations, but were the BLM to pursue its claim to the Red River lands vast areas of Texas could be open to a similar challenge and eventual federal control.
The great Texas oil boom of the 20th century, and the vast expansion and wealth of Texas cities, such as Dallas, Ft. Worth and Houston that accompanied it, all took place on private property without much federal interference. Likewise the newer shale plays, such as the Cline shale are outside of federal control.
The Red River lies between the Barnett shale in Texas and the Woodford in Oklahoma and some observers are beginning to wonder if controlling the wat
Even though the Red River Compact supposedly settles the Texas-Oklahoma border issues, it really doesn’t. The Red River has historically defined the border between Texas and Oklahoma. The border shifted back and forth as the course of the river changed. When Oklahoma was the “Indian Territory”, the various Indian nations in Oklahoma claimed lands to the northern bank of the Red River. And, Texas “began” on the southern bank. Border issues between two states began when Oklahoma was granted statehood. Since both states have sued each other regarding the border, the federal government sought to settle the issue once and for all. Hence, the Red River Compact. The agency tasked to oversee the compact is the BLM. Unfortunately, both states continue to quibble with one another about the border. Because of the dispute, the BLM has seen the only way to settle the border issues is to designate land on both sides of the Red River as federal land.
This, in some way, is similar to the dispute involving the Colorado River Compact which divides water in the Colorado among Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. Though the Colorado River Compact was devised in the 1940s, the water issues were never resolved. The states sued each other and the BLM despite the compact, with CA, AZ, and NV all claiming more water from the Colorado. To settle the water claims once and for all, former Secretary of Interior Gale Norton (Bush 43 administration) imposed a settlement. Water would be divided equally. A state can sell its share of the water, or a portion of it, subject to the approval of the Department of Interior. The settlement was filed and approved in the DC federal court. When Ken Salazar became Secretary of Interior during Obama’s first term, he scuttled most of the conditions of the settlement. And, so the states are back suing each other and the BLM over water rights and claims.
If the BLM is truly interested in resolving the Texas-Oklahoma border once and for all, they should consider buying the land at fair market value. Even eminent domain would be a better choice than just taking.