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
IMO, it's not a trap, it's quite plainly spoken right here:
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.
'claim any land which it does not already administer' means he's differentiating between the 'new' claim of the land and the land which they have overseen in the past.
This followed by the demand:
the answers to these questions should be quite straightforward.
Which basically means "Tell me EXACTLY what you're talking about, or shut the Hell up"!
----
That's the way I read it, anyway. :-)
The federal government has massive amounts of debt. Much of it could be paid off by permitting oil drilling, fracking and coal mining on these lands, with the lease revenue generating a lot of money.
The government would make a massive amount of money selling a lot of these managed lands to local people. For example, Ted Bundy might buy those acres he’s been grazing. The government gets money from the purchase, and Nevada then gains property taxes on it.
The problem is the government borrowing to lock up land from development and paying to manage it, because it has let the environmentalists take over.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Almost all the comments on Cruz’s facebook page were posted by conservatives who were 100% pi$$ed. I wrote him an email asking him why..and if wanted to lose the next election. I can’t believe how stupid he is to do this....really shows he’s out of touch. He better do what you suggest...and quick. Libs relish this picture.
Thanks for these links. Very interesting, and sheds some light on the issues between the two states, and the Feds.
However, the Feds, and the States, can only make agreements relating to land in the “public domain”. They can not just sign away individual rights that may predate the agreement, unless they go through the process of imminent domain or mutual agreement and compensation.
I should email him too. It’s a small thing but could be blown up big. It would be even better if he’d go to a big cat sanctuary and get a great photo with him petting a tiger. Then if he’s attacked, he could counter attack with “lobs never let anything go” (which is true!) and his sort of manly persona would go well with petting or hugging a tiger. But these days you have to be VERY media savvy.
Awesome graphic Windflier! Thanks for the ping!
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