Protect Land Along Red River, in Fannin County

I spoke on the Senate floor about the Texas provisions in the bipartisan Natural Resources Management Act that will restore local control of land in Fannin County and provide certainty to landowners along the Red River.  

Following the president's call for unity and bipartisanship in his State of the Union address earlier this week, I'm glad to see the Senate responding to that call and taking up legislation that we're currently on that has received broad bipartisan support in the Senate.

Near the end of the last Congress the Senate and the House reached an agreement on a package of more than 100 individual lands bills that received broad bipartisan support.

This week we'll have the opportunity to vote on this important piece of legislation and send this bipartisan bill to the president's desk.

This package includes a series of bipartisan provisions negotiated over years which will provide increased opportunities for sportsmen and sportswomen to utilize federal lands for hunting and fishing. Those changes are coupled with additional ones for conserving and enhancing wildlife habitats to ensure we're protecting these lands for generations to come. This legislation also authorizes dozens of land swaps – exchanges in conveyances which will deliver big changes to communities across the country, including my state.

For example, the Lake Fannin Recreation Area was once a thriving tourist attraction for Texas, but through the years it’s become dilapidated due to the inability of the Forest Service to properly do maintenance. The county has developed now a comprehensive plan to manage that land for recreation, and this bill will restore local control to more than 2,000 acres in Fannin County, Texas.

This legislation will also protect property owners along the Red River, the border between Texas and Oklahoma, who have faced uncertainty following a flawed Bureau of Land Management survey under the previous administration. This legislation will ensure that the federal government will make no claim and has no rightful claim to their property.

Again, I look forward to debating this legislation in the coming days and I hope we can pass this bill which will allow for the responsible development and conservation of land across our country.