included guaranteed right to the use of water, forest, 
pasture, minerals and other natural resources located 
on the common lands. 
(3) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as af-
firmed by the Protocol of Quere´taro protects property 
rights of land grants-mercedes in the territory ceded 
by Mexico to the United States of America. 
(4) Property rights include land, land title, 
water rights, natural resource rights, mineral rights, 
and rights to physical access. 
(5) Congress has enacted several major Federal 
land laws subject to valid existing rights including 
the Organic Administration Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. 
473 et seq.), the Taylor Grazing Act (43 U.S.C. 315 
et seq.), the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 
1960 (16 U.S.C. 528 et seq.), and the Federal Land 
Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701 
et seq.). 
(6) Various provisions of the Treaty of Guada-
lupe Hidalgo have not yet been fully implemented in 
the spirit of the United States Constitution, article 
VI, section 2. 
(7) Serious questions remain regarding the right-
ful ownership of lands in several western and south-
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
23:43 Nov 27, 2018
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6203
E:\BILLS\H6365.RH
H6365
pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
western States. Certain Federal lands are the focus of 
such questions. 
(8) The Gadsden Purchase incorporated by ref-
erence the property protection provisions of the Trea-
ty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 
(9) Land claim commissions, appointed by Con-
gress, have successfully examined disputed land pos-
session claims. 
(10) The United States Government has recog-
nized and upheld usufruct rights for other indigenous 
groups. 
(11) Between 1968 and 1981, the Forest Service 
recognized the uniqueness of the land tenure history 
in New Mexico and instituted what became known as 
the Northern New Mexico Policy for the Southwest 
Region to address the socioeconomic and cultural 
needs of the forest-dependent land grant-merced com-
munities in New Mexico. 
(12) The United States General Accounting Of-
fice Report to Congressional Requesters, dated June 
2004, numbered GAO–04–59, and entitled the ‘‘Trea-
ty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Findings and Possible Op-
tions Regarding Longstanding Community Land 
Grant Claims in New Mexico’’, found the New Mexico 
land claims confirmation process was inefficient and 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
23:43 Nov 27, 2018
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6203
E:\BILLS\H6365.RH
H6365
pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
caused hardships to claimants. Such report provided 
the following options for congressional consideration 
in addressing land grant-merced claims: 
(A) Consider establishing a commission or 
other body to reexamine specific Land Grant- 
Merced claims that were rejected or not con-
firmed for the full acreage claimed. 
(B) Consider transferring Federal land to 
communities that did not receive all of the acre-
age originally claimed for their community land 
grants. 
(C) Consider making financial payments to 
claimants’ heirs or other entities for the non-use 
of land originally claimed but not awarded. 
(13) The General Accounting Office also noted 
that ‘‘Congress may disagree with the U.S. Supreme 
Court’s Sandoval 1897 decision and decide that it 
should be ‘legislatively overruled’, by addressing the 
affected land grants in some way or taking other ac-
tion’’. 
(14) The State of New Mexico’s response to such 
report, dated August 14, 2008, and entitled ‘‘Report 
to the New Mexico Attorney General—A Response to 
the GAO’s 2004 Report ‘Treaty of Guadalupe Hi-
dalgo: Findings and Possible Options Regarding 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
23:43 Nov 27, 2018
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6203
E:\BILLS\H6365.RH
H6365
pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
Longstanding Community Land Grant Claims in 
New Mexico’ ’’, found the following: 
(A) The Federal Government had a duty to 
correctly confirm land grants-mercedes in New 
Mexico and that duty was understated by the 
analysis of the General Accounting Office. 
(B) Most land grants-mercedes were not 
confirmed by the Federal Government in the cor-
rect type of land ownership pattern, as granted 
by Spain or Mexico to be held in common by the 
entire community, but rather the vast majority 
were confirmed as privately owned by the family 
of a single petitioner or as tenancy-in-common. 
The tenancy-in-common designation was foreign 
to Spanish and Mexican jurisprudence and left 
land grants-mercedes subject to partition suits 
that resulted in the significant loss of common 
land. These facts were omitted by the General 
Accounting Office report. 
(C) Most postconfirmation land losses were 
the direct result of the improper nature of the 
Federal confirmation, and erroneous Federal 
confirmations could not be remedied in the court 
system, contrary to the analysis of the General 
Accounting Office. 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
23:43 Nov 27, 2018
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00007
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6203
E:\BILLS\H6365.RH
H6365
pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
(D) Many land grants-mercedes or their 
common lands were improperly rejected in their 
entirety, others lost substantial amounts of acre-
age by improper application of boundary de-
scriptions, and others were foreclosed from being 
confirmed by earlier adverse rulings. 
(E) The Federal Government in a great 
many cases did not provide constitutionally suf-
ficient notice of its confirmation activities, which 
contributed directly to many land grants-mer-
cedes being erroneously misconfirmed. 
(F) The Federal Government and various 
Federal agents and officials involved in the con-
firmation process helped create a climate in 
which land speculators were able to undermine 
the adjudication process to dispossess land 
grants-mercedes of their common lands. 
(15) Compared to their original claims, land 
grants-mercedes suffered enormous loss of land to the 
Federal Government and others. This loss negatively 
impacted the economic, environmental, and social 
well-being of these communities. 
(16) The following land grant-merced priority 
rights were protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hi-
dalgo: 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
23:43 Nov 27, 2018
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00008
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6203
E:\BILLS\H6365.RH
H6365
pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS