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Trump just gave away the rights to public land (land owned by the USA) to private entities. The Obama administration was trying to keep the taxpayer's land with the initial court case
You can always tell those who have no idea what they are talking about, just by letting them open up their mouth..
I don't know the particulars of this case, but as a westerner I appreciate the national treasure that is our public lands. They need to be preserved and defended and not given over to commercial interests.
...Trump just did the same with private entities in Texas - gave away the rights of our Public Land, owned by the US Citizens, and settled with private entities to allow them to use our land so they could make a profit off the USA taxpayer's public land. Trump rolled over against the best interest of the USA.
Not something to brag about really. Trump's rolling over and settling court cases against the best interest of the American Citizens.
If the BLM had bothered to check, they would have found that this matter was at least partially covered in the 1845 joint resolution authorizing the annexation of Texas to the United States. In that agreement, Texas retained sovereignty over all of its vacant, unappropriated (i.e., public) lands within its borders at the time, which would include any lands south of the Red River, all of which were patented long ago to private parties, and taken out of the public domain.
A few years later, in the Compromise of 1850, Texas surrendered its claim to what is now the eastern 2/3rds of New Mexico and to those lands lying north of 36'30" latitude, in exchange for the assumption by the U.S. of Texas' debt arising from the 1836 Texas Revolution. Nothing in the Compromise of 1850, however, changed the status of lands lying within Texas south of the Red River as established by the 1845 Annexation Resolution. If any vacant, unappropriated land were to be found by survey within the current-day boundaries of Texas (and it occasionally does happen), said lands would be within the public domain of the State of Texas. The U.S. would have no claim whatsoever on any vacant lands south of the Red River, having ceded any and all such claims in 1845.
It appears that, around 2005, some BLM personnel rather stupidly assumed that the rights of the U.S. were exactly the same on the south side of the Red River (where the U.S. ceded all claim in 1845) as they were on the north side in Oklahoma. Granted, it follows that any vacant, unappropriated lands north of the Red River are probably within the domain of the United States, since Oklahoma was a federal/Indian territory until 1907, when it was consolidated into the State of Oklahoma. However, as set forth above, that is in stark and clear contrast to the situation south of the Red River, where the U.S. has no claim on public lands at all.
It shouldn't have taken this long to resolve an issue that apparently only a few mental defectives at the BLM misunderstood. And it only took them 12 years to figure out that they were completely wrong.
I suppose it represents progress. Of a sort.
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