Cameron County has been authorised to own the bridge into Matamoros, under a statute that deems a border bridge permit granted if the President lets the clock run out
Approval by silence is now the default for a border bridge in three Texas counties.
That rule sits underneath a permit signed on 30 July and filed for public inspection at the Federal Register at 11.15 on Monday, publishing on Tuesday. It authorises Cameron County, Texas, to own, operate and maintain the Brownsville and Matamoros Bridge, the vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle crossing at the Brownsville and Matamoros port of entry. The permit describes the structure precisely: a concrete bridge of four spans, four vehicle lanes, and a pedestrian crossing on the downstream side, with the approaches, land, structures and equipment on the United States side. The county applied on 30 March.
The clock in the statute
The permit is granted in accordance with 33 U.S.C. 535d, which was added to the code on 22 December 2023 by Public Law 118-31, division E, title LIV, section 5414. It applies to what it calls an eligible applicant, meaning an entity that submitted a presidential permit application between 1 December 2020 and 31 December 2024 for one or more international bridges in Webb County, an international bridge in Cameron County, or an international bridge in Maverick County.
For those applicants the section sets two deadlines. The Secretary of State has 60 days from receiving the application to recommend a grant or a denial, and the only basis the statute allows for that recommendation is whether the bridge is in the foreign policy interests of the United States. The President then has 60 days, running from the earlier of the recommendation and the day the recommendation was due.
Then comes subsection (d)(2). If the President does neither, the permit shall be considered to have been granted as of that deadline. The applicant must still complete the environmental documents required under the National Environmental Policy Act, but subsection (e) forbids the Secretary from requiring those documents in the application, or from requiring the review to be finished before the President grants the permit at all.
The permit names an application dated 30 March and is itself dated 30 July. The statutory clocks run from the day the Secretary received the application, which neither document states, so the two cannot be lined up from what is public.
What the President kept
Ten articles follow the grant, and three of them are worth reading together.
Article 5 allows the county to transfer ownership or control of the crossing to another non-federal entity or individual only upon the prior express approval of the President, and a transfer to a federal agency requires notice and approval as well. Article 9 states that the President may terminate, revoke or amend the permit at any time at his sole discretion, adds that the county's obligation to implement any amendment is subject to the availability of funds, and terminates the permit outright if the bridge is permanently closed as an international crossing. Article 10 states that the permit creates no right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States.
So a statute that can hand over a permit through inaction sits alongside a permit revocable at will. The document gives no price, no seller and no completion date, because it is an authorisation to own rather than a record of a purchase. Cameron County has been granted presidential permits before, in June 2024 and in August 2025.
