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.