As foreign espionage threats continue in the U.S. and in Texas, a new bill becomes law Sept. 1 that prohibits foreign ownership of Texas land.
SB 17, filed by state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, passed the Texas legislature with bipartisan support and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The Adversarial Land Ownership Act initially passed the Senate in March by a vote of 24-7. A watered-down version passed the House in May by a vote of 75-47 with Republicans and Democrats voting against it. Differences in the bill were ironed out in conference committee and each chamber voted to pass the bill with bipartisan support. Abbott signed the bill into law last month.
“For three years, I’ve worked to pass a bill to protect our land, homes, commercial buildings, water, timber, oil and gas and rare earth materials from being bought up by foreign adversarial nations like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” Kolkhorst said, adding that the final bill sent to the governor “is the strongest national security bill in the nation. Texas is not for sale to our enemy countries.”
As of Sept. 1, the new law will prohibit foreign governmental entities, companies, and individuals from purchasing private property in Texas if they are from or connected to countries listed in the latest Annual Threat Assessment report published by the Director of National Intelligence. To date, countries on the list are China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
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Author: Ray Hilbrich
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