Posted on 04/25/2014 11:34:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued the following letter April 24 to the Bureau of Land Management asking the agency to respond to concerns raised by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott about the Red River Boundary Compact and associated lands.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Honorable Neil Kornze
Director
Bureau of Land Management
United States Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW, Room 5665
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Director Kornze,
In a letter dated April 22nd, 2014, the Attorney General of Texas Greg Abbott asked for responses to five specific inquiries regarding Bureau of Land Management land claims along the Red River.
These concerns were prompted by reports from BLM field hearings that the federal government may claim up to 90,000 acres of land along the Red River.
Atty. General Abbott issued a letter to BLM asking for the following concerns to be addressed, in writing. I also would like BLM to respond to these requests.
1. Please delineate with specificity each of the steps for the RMP/EIS process for property along the Red River.
2. Please describe the procedural due process the BLM will afford to Texans whose property may be claimed by the federal government.
3. Please confirm whether the BLM agrees that, from 1923 until the ratification of the Red River Boundary Compact, the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma was the gradient line of the south bank of the Red River. To the extent the BLM does not agree, please provide legal analysis supporting the BLM’s position.
4. Please confirm whether the BLM still considers Congress’ ratification of the Red River Boundary Compact as determinative of its interest in land along the Red River. To the extent the BLM does not agree, please provide legal analysis supporting the BLM’s new position.
5. Please delineate with specificity the amount of Texas territory that would be impacted by the BLM’s decision to claim this private land as the property of the federal government.
Though BLM issued a statement from April 23, 2014 in which the agency states that: “BLM is categorically not expanding Federal holdings along the Red River,” this response does not answer General Abbott’s concerns. In addition, BLM’s statement does not address whether the agency takes the position that the 90,000 acres of land in question along the Red River is already BLM land, which would make the agency’s “categorical denial” an act of deceptive sophistry.
Therefore, I would like to make an additional inquiry:
6. Please confirm that BLM does not take the position that it has rights to ownership or control of any of the 90,000 acres of land along the Red River that are at the center of this controversy or similarly situated land. If it claims any such rights, please identify with specificity the acreage, location and legal basis for claiming those rights.
If BLM indeed does not intend to claim any land which it does not already administer along the Red River, the answers to these questions should be quite straightforward.
I ask that you or your staff respond in writing to General Abbott and me, answering our questions directly and specifically, as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Ted Cruz
U.S. Senator
I am really liking Ted Cruz A LOT.
Go Cruz!
Me, too. He’s my guy in 2016 because he simply doesn’t take any sh!t from anybody.
Amen Ted
Cruz is over the target.
:-)
Exactly, just what we need. I bet he doesn’t CRY either.
He looks like Walter Peck.
A fag and his beard?
Ping.
I like the way you think. So it is written, so it should be done.
FROM THE BLM website:
http://www.doi.gov/whoweare/blm-dir.cfm
Since March 1, 2013, Neil Kornze has been leading the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as the agency’s Principal Deputy Director. Kornze oversees the agency’s management of more than 245 million acres of public land nationwide.
Prior to serving in his current role, Kornze was the BLM’s Acting Deputy Director for Policy and Programs starting in October 2011. Kornze joined the organization in January 2011 as a Senior Advisor to the Director. In these roles, he worked on a broad range of issues, including renewable and conventional energy development, transmission siting, and conservation policy.
Kornze was a key player in the development of the Western Solar Plan and the agency’s successful authorization of more than 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy, surpassing a congressionally-established goal 3 years ahead of schedule. He has also been active in tribal consultation, especially as it relates to oil and gas and renewable energy development.
Before coming to the BLM, Kornze worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. In his work for Senator Reid, which spanned from early 2003 to early 2011, he worked on a variety of public lands issues, including renewable energy development, mining, water, outdoor recreation, rural development, and wildlife. Kornze has also served as an international election observer in Macedonia, the Ukraine, and Georgia, and he is co-author of an article in “The Oxford Companion to American Law.”
Raised in Elko, Nevada, Kornze is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a degree in Politics from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He earned a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics.
quote “BLM is categorically not expanding Federal holdings along the Red River”
the KEY words there ... “not expanding”
the BLM believes they already have ownership of the land, and thus are “not expanding” the amount of land they are taking.
This is what happens when lawyers run out government.
Make us proud Ted, make us proud.
Cruz always makes us proud. :)
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