Pinon Canyon funding ban reinstated

Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., has convinced the chairman of a crucial House appropriations subcommittee to restore the annual funding ban that has blocked the Army from spending any money to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site for the past four years. Rep. John Culverson, R-Texas, is expected to restore the funding ban to the 2012 military construction budget when it is considered by the full House Appropriations Committee today. Culverson chairs the Military Construction Subcommittee and his backing of the Pinon Canyon moratorium almost certainly guarantees the ban will remain. For Tipton, the new GOP congressman in the 3rd Congressional District, the funding ban has been a critical issue because it has been the centerpiece of the opposition to the Army's controversial efforts to expand the 235,000-acre training site northeast of Trinidad...more

Good for Tipton. The story I linked to yesterday said:

"Congressman Tipton is going to offer an amendment — to restore the funding ban — when the military construction bill comes to the full House floor for consideration," Josh Green, Tipton's spokesman, said Thursday. "We've gotten permission from the House (Republican) leadership to offer that amendment." Whether that means that House Speaker John Boehner's leadership team will support Tipton's amendment is less certain. Other Colorado Republicans, especially Reps. Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman, have opposed the funding ban in the past and backed the Army's effort to expand Pinon Canyon.

If he gets it in the Committee version of the bill it does assure passage in the House. Those Republicans who feel we need a larger federal government and less private land would have to offer an amendment on the floor to remove the ban, which is highly unlikely.