Texasss nutters challenge feds over govt land

[Luddly Neddite]

gun nuts Archives :: The Political Carnival

Texas rancher Tommy Henderson lost 140 acres of grazing land when an Oklahoma court ruled in 1984 that it belonged to the federal government.

“Our family paid taxes for over 100 years on this place,” Henderson said. “We’ve got a deed to it. But yet they walked in and said it wasn’t ours.”

His case differs substantially from Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who drew national attention and militia backing over his refusal to pay grazing fees on federal land where his cattle roam.

Open Carry Rally In Texas Held To Oppose BLM Land Grab

Texas rancher Tommy Henderson, the land owner at the heart of the BLM land grab debate had this to say about the ongoing actions of the federal agency:

“How can BLM come in and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t yours.’ Even though its patented from the state, you’ve always paid taxes on it. Our family paid taxes for over 100 years on this place. We’ve got a deed to it. But yet they walked in and said it wasn’t ours. Originally, here the river was out there where it is now and it eroded and accreted up to here, and then it eroded and accreted back. Well, their interpretation is that it eroded up to here but avulsed back. So when you listen to them it is always erosion to the south because the property line follows it then, but it’s always avulsion when it goes north. So the boundary can move south but it can never move back north.”


Read more at Open Carry Rally In Texas Held To Oppose BLM Land Grab

For State Politicians, BLM Dispute is Fertile Turf | The Texas Tribune

State Rep. James Frank has been hearing from constituents since February about goings-on along the Red River: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, citing a series of court rulings dating to the 1920s, had decided that a 116-mile stretch of land belonged to the federal government.

The roughly 90,000 acres included property long ago deeded to residents who had raised crops and cattle and paid taxes on it.

Questions had been swirling in North Texas since December, when BLM representatives came to discuss updates to its resource management plans in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — how the land would be used for the next 15 to 20 years.

So Frank, R-Wichita Falls, and other area lawmakers quietly went to work, first trying to understand two centuries of treaties, litigation and changing geography rooted in the bureau’s claim. They teamed with U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who had requested information from the agency and was mulling legislative action.

Then came the national headlines.

Amid the bureau’s headline-making standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy over grazing fees on clearly established public land, which has little in common with the Red River debate, Texas politicos seized on the border angst of state residents.