Pinon Canyon ban stays in 2010 budget bill

A ban on the Army spending any money to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site next year has been included in the 2010 omnibus federal budget bill that U.S. House and Senate negotiators have agreed upon. The full House and Senate are expected to approve the spending bill before the year's end and it will be the third consecutive year that Congress has approved the Pinon Canyon funding ban Ñ first sponsored by Colorado Reps. John Salazar and Marilyn Musgrave in 2007. Salazar, whose 3rd Congressional District includes the 238,000-acre training range, now serves on the House Appropriations Committee. Earlier this year, he included the funding ban in the House version of the 2010 military construction budget...read more