Red River Private Property Protection Act

[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4979 Introduced in House (IH)]

113th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4979

 To provide legal certainty to property owners along the Red River in 
                     Texas, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 26, 2014

Mr. Thornberry (for himself, Mr. Flores, Mr. Marchant, Mr. Burgess, and 
 Mr. Neugebauer) introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
                   the Committee on Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide legal certainty to property owners along the Red River in 
                     Texas, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Red River Private Property 
Protection Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds as follows:
            (1) In 1923, the Supreme Court found the border between 
        Texas and Oklahoma to be: ``the water-washed and relatively 
        permanent elevation or acclivity at the outer line of the river 
        bed which separates the bed from the adjacent upland, whether 
        valley or hill, and serves to confine the waters within the bed 
        and to preserve the course of the river, and that the boundary 
        intended is on and along the bank at the average or mean level 
        attained by the waters in the periods when they reach and wash 
        the bank without overflowing it. When we speak of the bed, we 
        include all of the area which is kept practically bare of 
        vegetation by the wash of the waters of the river from year to 
        year in their onward course, although parts of it are left dry 
        for months at a time, and we exclude the lateral valleys, which 
        have the characteristics of relatively fast land and usually 
        are covered by upland grasses and vegetation, although 
        temporarily overflowed in exceptional instances when the river 
        is at flood.''.
            (2) This would become known as the ``gradient boundary''.
            (3) This decision makes clear that, absent water that is 
        physically touching the bank, the high bluff or ``ancient 
        bank'' along the southern edge of the Red River is not the 
        boundary between Texas and Oklahoma.
            (4) In 2000, Public Law 106-288 ratified the Red River 
        Boundary Compact agreed to and signed into State law by Texas 
        and Oklahoma that sets the boundary between the States to be 
        the vegetation line on the south bank of the Red River, except 
        for the Texoma area where the boundary is established pursuant 
        to procedures provided for in the Compact.
            (5) Therefore, the Bureau of Land Management should have no 
        claim to land that is either south of the ``gradient boundary'' 
        established by the Supreme Court or south of the vegetation 
        line on the southern bank of the Red River pursuant to Public 
        Law 106-288 whereby landowners have proof of their right, 
        title, and interest to the land and have been paying property 
        taxes accordingly.

SEC. 3. ISSUANCE OF QUIT CLAIM DEEDS.

    (a) In General.--The Secretary shall relinquish and shall transfer 
by quit claim deed all right, title, and interest of the United States 
in and to Red River lands to any claimant who demonstrates to the 
satisfaction of the Secretary that official county or State records 
indicate that the claimant holds all right, title, and interest to 
those lands.
    (b) Public Notification.--The Secretary shall publish in the 
Federal Register and on official and appropriate Web sites the process 
to receive written and/or electronic submissions of the documents 
required under subsection (a). The Secretary shall treat all proper 
notifications received from the claimant as fulfilling the satisfaction 
requirements under subsection (a).
    (c) Standard of Approval.--The Secretary shall accept all official 
county and State records as filed in the county on the date of 
submission proving right, title, and interest.
    (d) Time Period for Approval or Disapproval of Request.--The 
Secretary shall approve or disapprove a request for a quit claim deed 
under subsection (a) not later than 120 days after the date on which 
the written request is received by the Secretary. If the Secretary 
fails to approve or disapprove such a request by the end of such 120-
day period, the request shall be deemed to be approved.

SEC. 4. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN.

    The Secretary shall ensure that no parcels of Red River lands are 
treated as Federal land for the purpose of any resource management plan 
until the Secretary has ensured that such parcels are not subject to 
transfer under section 3.

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.

    For the purposes of this Act--
            (1) the term ``Red River lands'' means lands along the 
        approximately 539-mile stretch of the Red River between the 
        States of Texas and Oklahoma; and
            (2) the term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of the 
        Interior, acting through the Director of Bureau of Land 
        Management.
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