Posted on 04/25/2014 11:04:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Oklahoma Field Office responded to Breitbart Texas about the so-called Red River “land grab” by emphasizing that parcels in question are already held in the public domain and BLM-managed. The Bureau claims it is not they who are declaring the ownership but that settled case law long declared it to be government land.
BLM Public Relations Specialist Paul McGuire agreed to a one-on-one telephone interview with Breitbart Texas after reading the original report published earlier this week. In contrast with the interview with Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson, McGuire expressed much more confidence about the ownership of the land and indicated little, if any, ambiguity about how or why the land should be under federal control.
“It’s not the BLM making any such claim as to the status of the land,” McGuire said. “That land was a matter that the courts adjudicated decades ago, going back to the 1920s in fact. The Supreme Court settled the matter as to where the public land in the Red River was. So, BLM is really just proceeding on those earlier court decisions.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Coming out of the revolution several colonies had conflicting boundary claims. Couldn’t settle. Congress commissioned surveyors to settle the disputes and parcel off the northwest territory.
Source. The Fabric of America
Don’t know what the law says, but that’s a role the Feds took then.
There’s a SCOTUS decision that says the feds control the land under all navigable waterways. I think it had to do with the EPA. I’ll find it and post a link.
The Chamizal Memorial (Park) near El Paso, Tx. has something to do with how the Rio Grande shifted back and forth between the USA and Mexico.
Thanks for sheddling light guys.
Found this case the other day while creating that custom database I told you about. It seems relevant/related to our ongoing discussion about federal land ownership. (Please ping anyone I missed.)
Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States
The Supreme Court sided today with a Wyoming landowner who challenged the Forest Service's construction of a bicycle trail on an abandoned railway that slices through his property.Excellent summary.By an 8-1 vote, the justices held in Marvin Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States that the government had no right to Brandt's Fox Park tract once the railroad formally abandoned the property around 2004. The decision reverses a lower federal appellate court ruling in favor of the Forest Service.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, classified the railroad right of way as an easement that reverted back to Brandt when the railroad pulled up its ties.
The government, Roberts wrote, lost because of its arguments in a previous Supreme Court case -- 1942's Great Northern Railway Co. v. United States. That case centered on whether railroads were given rights to subsurface minerals when the government granted a right of way.
The government won in that case by arguing that railroads didn't get mineral rights and classified rights of way as easements, meaning a temporary right to cross the land.
The court "cannot overlook the irony," Roberts said, of the government now basing its arguments on other Supreme Court cases.
"The government loses that argument today, in large part because it won when it argued the opposite before this court more than 70 years ago," he wrote.
"Those basic common law principles resolve this case. When the Wyoming and Colorado Railroad abandoned the right of way in 2004, the easement referred to in the Brandt patent terminated. Brandt's land became unburdened of the easement, conferring on him the same full rights over the right of way as he enjoyed over the rest of the Fox Park parcel."
(...)
"The chief may have taken this opinion to send a message to the [solicitor general] that it should not be making arguments that depend on a complete about-face from prior arguments that have formed the basis for long-standing precedent," said Tim Bishop of Mayer Brown, a Supreme Court industry advocate who's not involved in the Brandt case. "Someone at [the Department of Justice] should have stood up to [the Bureau of Land Management] and Interior and explained that there was no plausible basis for arguing that the right of way was more than an easement."
- change the subject
- divert
- divide
- shoot from the hip
- forget about the feds and greedy crooked politicians
- “Corrupt Bastards” - Sarah Palin said several years ago
- pretend you are a saint and condemn everyone but yourself
- BLM, algore enviro-NAZIS, Obama, Harry Reid - everyone gets piece a da action now
- those pizza runs for BJ Clinton don’t count
- Benghazi was just four plus bumps in the road
- “…maybe a little blow - definitely another book...”
- lay down on the sofa and give me all of your credit cards - you need some psychiatric advice - just let me take off this sweater and loosen my tie -
Don’t you know how to make paragraphs?
Yeah, we were BUSY for 90 years. THAT'S it, THAT'S the ticket!
Yeah, we were busy with our wife, MORGAN FAIRCHILD. THAT'S it, THAT'S the ticket!
Bring it on!
Excellent find, Buckeye Texan.
I’m thinking that the hope is America’s attention will be diverted from the FEDERAL LAND ISSUES if they bring down Clive Bundy. Not one talking head walked it back even a little bit yesterday that I heard. They are a united chorus against the old boy on everyone from Hannity to Stephanopolus.
Oddly, Fox is trying to turn it into an eminent domain type discussion when that isn’t the issue at all. The issue is the constitutional authority to continuously hold land without a constitutional purpose in holding it.
Even Red River isn’t an eminent domain discussion.
Time to start grazing the Herd all over that area.
Those blm dipsticks Rustle Cattle in Texas they will be Tried, Convicted and Hung for it!
“Case law”? I don’t believe that can be found in the US Constitution. It stipulates that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
The land owners have a really strong case - of course it is Texas land, I’ve been paying Texas property taxes on it since before there was a BLM.
Umm, no, BLM, that is not ownership - ownership is very easy to look up, you go down to the local court house, you pull the deeds, you look at property tax records - it is very easy to determine who owns the land. What you have is called a 'claim.' It is the basis of the START of legal procedures, not the END of legal procedures. You claim the land, and then have to explain to a court exactly why you've chosen not to exercise this claim for nearly a hundred years, why you've abandoned the property, failed to keep it posted and marked, why you've not interceded on all these deeds, why you've not acted in property tax cases or in the cases of easement, bankruptcy and foreclosure.
You have a nice little stepping stone which likely would put you right into the 5th where you have to compensate the property owners if you decide to go further with your claim.
Worst part of all of this is that the billions this whole claim will take will come out of the pockets of our great grandchildren, a considerable amount of economic activity will be curtailed, and the end result will just be you leasing that property for a fraction of what it was worth in private hands to pretty much exactly what it is being used for today.
Ghads, nothing like the feds to do something just to do something, make us pay through the nose for it, and after all is said and done, nothing changes.
LOL! That one’s going to see some use!
If you guys keep making fun of me.. I’ll shoot!!..Ricky Holder April 25 2014
YUP!!
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