[CPEO-MEF] EXPANSION: Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (CO)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Bush signs 2009 budget
Pinon Canyon ban is included in bill; work at Pueblo Chemical Depot, 
Fort Carson and Peterson Air Force Base receive funds.

By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN (CO)
October 5, 2008

President Bush signed a $660 billion "continuing resolution" last 
Tuesday to keep the federal government operating through Oct. 1, 2009...

The most controversial amendment affecting the region, however, is the 
continuing ban on the Army expanding the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon 
training area northeast of Trinidad. That ban was first put in place in 
the summer of 2007 by Reps. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and John Salazar, 
D-Colo., as well as the congressman's brother, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.

John Salazar and Musgrave renewed the funding ban this summer as 
lawmakers compiled virtually all of the usual federal appropriations 
bills into the single "continuing resolution" that Bush signed on 
Tuesday. Facing a major debate over the $700 billion rescue package for 
the nation's financial institutions, the Senate considered and approved 
the 2009 budget resolution virtually untouched.

Whether the Army will be constrained by the moratorium is another 
matter. Last summer, Army officials said they intended to go ahead and 
solicit interested landowners who might be willing to sell up to 100,000 
acres along Pinon Canyon's southern border. They argued that unspent 
land-acquisition funds from earlier years would pay for that 
solicitation without violating the ban.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2008/10/05/news/local/doc48e856d0304aa468274190.prt

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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