releases: http://tipton.house.gov/press-release/witnesses-testify-landowners-need-protection-federal-land-management-agencies
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| http://tipton.house.gov/press-release/witnesses-testify-landowners-need-protection-federal-land-management-agencies | Witnesses Testify that Landowners Need Protection from Federal Land Management Agencies | 2014-07-24 | 2014 | 2014-07 | Republican | House | CO | Scott Tipton | T000470 | tipton.house.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON—Today, during a House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation oversight hearing, witnesses testified on abuses they have suffered at the hands of federal land management agencies and emphasized that Western landowners oftentimes have no protection or recourse when the government sets its sights on their land. “As Cattle Growers' President, we are dealing daily with individual and collective efforts to remove families like mine from the land. The worst part is that we have no recourse,” testified Jose Varela Lopez, President of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association. Read Lopez’s full testimony HERE. Tipton asked Lopez if he had received notification when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began buying-up and locking-down lands surrounding his property which resulted in the decrease of his property value and loss of his ability to utilize his land. “They did not notify me. It’s my understanding that in talking to them recently that normally they do not notify the adjoining landowners because when they make agreements with certain nonprofits like the Trust for Public Land and others, it’s usually a hush-hush deal. They don’t want anybody to know what they’re doing, and so when I found out about all of these things it was after the fact,” Lopez answered. Watch Tipton’s Q&A with the Witnesses HERE Lopez went on to say, “If I had known about this before this happened we could have come to some agreement in doing a land exchange or something like that that would have benefited both of us.” Tipton recently introduced two pieces of legislation that seek to increase transparency and accountability in federal land exchanges and transactions, require notification of land transactions, and help provide landowners with protections when federal land managers make mistakes. “Today’s hearing speaks to something that Coloradans have experienced for far too long—federal land management agency abuse. It seems to be commonsense that landowners should be protected from federal land management agency mistakes and abuses of their power. But unfortunately, when government makes the mistake or acts inappropriately, it’s the American people that suffer, left with no recourse or line of defense to protect their livelihoods as we heard in today’s hearing,” said Tipton. “We’ve seen this in the 3rd District where numerous landowners have been the victims of BLM survey mistakes that in some cases weren’t discovered until after numerous resurveys, sometimes decades later. In these cases, it wasn’t BLM employees that were held accountable for their actions, but the landowners who were forced to pay fines and even charged with trespassing despite having no way of knowing that the BLM surveys were wrong. My legislation takes needed steps to provide landowners with protections to ensure they are not left to suffer the consequences when land management agency employees make mistakes, and would also require that impacted landowners receive proper advance notification whenever the federal government is involved in a land exchange. This will increase accountability and transparency in federal land transactions and give affected neighboring landowners an opportunity to take action to protect their livelihoods.” Lopez testified to the Committee that Tipton’s legislation (H.R. 5074) would be beneficial in cases like his. H.R. 5075, the Resurveys Entitle Adjacent Landowners to Protection (REAL Protection) Act offers commonsense reforms to the BLM resurvey process by creating a more transparent and equitable process of conducting resurveys and advances the rights of landowners by providing safeguards against BLM actions. H.R. 5074, the Land Adjacency Notification and Disclosure (LAND) Act, seeks to improve the transparency, oversight and notification of land exchanges involving U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands or public lands under the jurisdiction of the BLM. Learn more about Tipton’s landowner protection bills HERE. The full list of witnesses and their testimony is available HERE. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |