New Proposed Bill Would Ban Foreign Entities From Owning Texas Land
Senate Bill 17, introduced by Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) and co-author Senator Brent Hagenbuch (R-Denton) would prohibit hostile foreign entities from purchasing land in Texas in order to “protect key and natural resources”.
In the one-page document, the Kolkhorst and Hagenbuch open up with the following":
“Many countries around the world and others states restrict ownership of land by certain foreign entities and individuals. Currently, the only federal law regarding foreign investment is the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 which only aims to regulate foreign investment through self-reported data. Texans have raised concerns of national security ranging from energy security to food security. Preventing private property rights from being controlled by entities from adversarial nations is key to ensuring national security.”
Listed below are a few of the bill’s key provisions:
This bill prohibits the purchase of certain private property in Texas by governmental entities, companies, and individuals that are domiciled in a country that has been named in the three recently published Annual Threat Assessment report prepared by the most Director of National Security. This bill refers to individuals domiciled i a country rather than referring to citizens, as in SB 147.
This bill bans private property ownership by named entities, not foreign business investments in Texas.
The bill does not name a particular country but instead ties applicability of a country to a country designated as athreat by Director of National Intelligence in the three most recently published Annual Threat Assessments. The three most recent publications allows the legislature time to make changes if the criteria of the report changes while ensuring the identification of a threating country by the Director of National Intelligence is not a one-off event.
