WASHINGTON — Ever since the federal government laid claim to half of Kenneth Aderholt’s land along the Red River, the Texas rancher has felt frozen.

He and dozens of others along a 116-mile stretch of river near Wichita Falls are waiting to hear what will happen to the land they believe is rightfully theirs.

“This is my livelihood,” said Aderholt, who raises cattle on 700 acres. “We’ve built our lives around this land.”

A resolution seems as unclear as ever. That’s because what began as a land dispute between some Texans and the federal Bureau of Land Management is now a partisan struggle over whether the government should cede power to the state. Complicating matters is the river’s slow, northward retreat.

Two Texas Republicans – Rep. Mac Thornberry and Sen. John Cornyn – propose allowing state officials to sort out who owns the land.

President Barack Obama has threatened a veto. His administration isn’t keen on handing over the bureau’s power to state officials, much less Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush.

In a statement, Obama did say he wants to create “legal certainty” for those living along the Red River, but the bureau’s idea for doing that involves selling them what they already consider to be theirs.

The suggestion is “callous and insulting,” said Robert Henneke, of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the property owners’ attorney.

Meanwhile, Thornberry’s bill passed the House overwhelmingly, while Cornyn’s may pass the Republican Senate. But only 13 of 186 Democrats voted for the House bill, and finding enough Democratic support in the Senate to override a veto may tough.

The question of where boundaries lie along the river goes back to a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that dismissed Oklahoma’s claim that all of the river is in that state.

The court ruled that land north of the middle of the river is in Oklahoma. Based on boundaries drawn by the Louisiana Purchase, federal territory runs from the middle of the river to the southern bank.

To the south of that is Texas.

But property owners say erosion and accretion has moved the river as far as a mile north of the river’s path at the time of the court ruling.

As the river moved, they argue in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, so did the northern edge of their properties. The area where a river flowed 90 years ago is now grassy land grazed upon by Aderholt’s cattle.

In 2013, as the bureau worked on what spokesman Paul McGuire called a routine management plan, it marked off federal property as roughly the same area noted in a 1923 survey.

That is south of where the river now flows – slicing through land that Aderholt and his neighbors think is theirs.

Aderholt said he looks from his home across 500 grassy acres to the river’s current channel. The bureau considers all of that to be federal property.

McGuire said the Bureau of Land Management is still identifying options for what to do with the disputed land. It could do nothing. It could sell it.

Frustration of those who live there is “understandable,” he said. But the government cannot simply give away its land.

“The land is public domain,” he said. “It belongs to the American people.”

The bureau is floating an idea of selling the disputed land to property owners, crediting them for the money they’ve spent to improve the land and taxes they’ve paid over the years.

One resident, who bought land under the program elsewhere on the river, paid about $1 an acre, McGuire said.

However, sales are capped at 168 acres in that program, said Henneke.

In a statement, Thornberry said that proposal is “not enough to do right by these landowners.”

Instead, he wants the bureau to “disclaim any right, title, and interest” to the land, followed by a survey to set boundaries to be approved by the Texas General Land Office.

In the meantime, Aderholt, whose father built the ranch in 1941, said he wants to pass his land along the Red River on to his children.

He just doesn’t know if it will be his to give.

Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C., reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com