Last week, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX-19) introduced H.R. 7348, the Transparency in Federal Land Acquisitions Act that would require a public comment period in the Federal Register before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalizes new Land Protection Plans.
The reason Arrington filed the bill was because on April 16, 2024, the Biden Administration released a Land Protection Plan for the expansion of the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge located inside his congressional district without his knowledge, and no Congressional or local consent.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Texas Parks and Wildlife, New Mexico Game and Fish and The Nature Conservancy spent several years drafting the Plan authorizing the expansion of the Refuge by 700,000 acres made up of private land. The acquisition area was over 7 million acres covering 20 counties in the Texas Panhandle and five in eastern New Mexico. They intended to expand the 6,440-acre refuge by 1,000 percent.
Arrington was not about to let the Federal Government get a foothold in Texas, let alone his district. American Stewards was called in by a local realtor, Monty Edwards, to help organize landowners, create a 391 Planning Commission for coordination, and fight the expansion, which we did for over a year during the end of the Biden administration.
We all were able to hold the proponents of the plan off long enough till President Trump came into office. That’s when in August of 2025, U.S. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum rescinded the plan.
“For far too long, government bureaucrats have jammed through plans to expand federal land by hundreds of thousands of acres without any input or feedback from the communities affected,” said Chairman Arrington. My Transparency in Federal Land Acquisitions Act builds on the successes of the Trump administration and ensures lasting transparency for so-called “Land Protection Plans” by giving local landowners and county officials an opportunity to provide input before a decision is made.”
“Representative Arrington’s bill will take away the federal agency’s practice of quietly acquiring private land without any notice to the public,” said Margaret Byfield, Executive Director of the American Stewards of Liberty. “Currently, local communities are often blindsided and harmed when land is federalized, taken off the tax rolls, and out of productivity. Arrington’s bill requires the agencies to be transparent in their transactions giving impacted communities an opportunity to raise concerns.”
The bill calls for the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to publish a land protection plan in the Federal Register if the plan calls for expanding a refuge by more than 50 acres or 15 percent of the total acreage of the existing refuge. It must be published at least 60 days prior to approving it and allow for public comment.
