Is Bundy really the bad guy fighting for his rights?

Published April 23, 2014

Texas officials are raising alarm that the Bureau of Land Management, on the heels of its dust-up with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, might be eyeing a massive land grab in northern Texas.

The under-the-radar issue has caught the attention of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who fired off a letter on Tuesday to BLM Director Neil Kornze saying the agency “appears to be threatening” the private property rights of “hard-working Texans.”

“Decisions of this magnitude must not be made inside a bureaucratic black box,” wrote Abbott, also a Republican gubernatorial candidate.

CLICK HERE TO READ ABBOTT'S LETTER

At issue are thousands of acres of land on the Texas side of the Red River, along the border between Texas and Oklahoma. Officials recently have raised concern that the BLM might be looking at claiming 90,000 acres of land as part of the public domain.

The agency, though, argues that any land in question was long ago determined to be public property.

“The BLM is categorically not expanding Federal holdings along the Red River,” a BLM spokeswoman said in a written statement late Tuesday afternoon.

The spokeswoman referred to a 140-acre plot “determined to be public land in 1986” – an apparent reference to a 1986 federal court case. Breitbart.com, which reported Monday on the Texas land dispute, reported that a Texas landowner lost 140 acres to BLM in that case, and the agency is now using that decision as precedent to pursue more property.

Tommy Henderson, the rancher involved in that case, told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on "On the Record" Tuesday that the BLM was "talking about taking another 90,000 acres by using my court case as the precedent to seize the other land...

"They won't talk to us or be straight with us as to what their plans are," Henderson said. "...So I have continued to pay for this land or the federal government would seize everything else I had."

According to background materials put out by Texas Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry’s office, the BLM is revisiting its management plan for lands including those along a 116-mile stretch of the Red River. His office said the possibility has been discussed of opening that land up for “hunting, recreation and management."

Gene Hall of the Texas Farm Bureau told Van Susteren, "we have seen an aggressive overreach by the federal government and in more than one instance, if you have got an agency like this that's very well funded with a lot of people involved, then you shouldn't be surprised if they are going to overreach and extend that aggressive approach."

Abbott, in his letter to the agency, said “it is not at all clear what legal basis supports the BLM’s claim of federal ownership over private property.” He said private landowners have

BLM-Bundy Confrontation Ignites new “Sagebrush Rebellion”

Bob Barr | Apr 23, 2014

One of the biggest land grabs in American history occurred in 1976, when President Jimmy Carter signed into a law the “Federal Land Policy and Management Act.” That stroke of the pen transferred hundreds of millions of acres of land, located primarily in the western states, into the control of the federal government. In reaction, an alliance of ranchers, farmers, and other concerned citizens – the “Sagebrush Rebels” as they came to be known -- challenged the move and sought to return the land back into the hands of the states. Ronald Reagan, at the time running for president, supported the action of the states. “I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion,” the Gipper remarked in 1980; “count me in as a rebel.”

Today, the federal government controls nearly 640 million acres of public land (28 percent of the entire United States). In fact, nearly half of all western states (and 62 percent of Alaska) is “owned” by Uncle Sam and controlled by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.; only four percent of other states fall under federal control. The feud over federal ownership and management of public lands in western states is nothing new. What is new, however, is the propensity of federal agencies to escalate confrontation with ranchers in those areas; most recently seen in the Obama Administration’s arrogant (and near violent) attack on Nevada rancher Clive Bundy. That single incident has reignited the “Sagebrush Rebellion” and pushed western states into action.

Last week, more than 50 political representatives from nine western states met in a legislative summit to begin to seriously discuss how to start the process of transferring federal public lands back to the custody of the states. “We have to start managing these lands,” Montana State Sen. Jennifer Fielder told the press during the summit. “It's the right thing to do for our people, for our environment, for our economy and for our freedoms.”

Is Bundy really the bad guy fighting for his rights?

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BLM-Bundy Confrontation Ignites new “Sagebrush Rebellion”