DENVER—A plan that would block spending for a proposed expansion of the Army’s Pinon Canyon training site in southeast Colorado overwhelmingly passed in the U.S. House on Friday.
The proposal still has to make it through the Senate.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., had presented the proposal as an amendment to a defense spending bill. The amendment would bar the military from using money in its 2008 budget to extend land holdings in southeastern Colorado and block funding for a planned environmental impact study of a proposal to nearly triple the size of the training site.
The Army wants to expand the Pinon Canyon maneuver site from 368 square miles to more than 1,000 square miles as Fort Carson grows.
Doug Lamborn, a Republican representing the Colorado Springs area that is home to several military installations, was the lone Colorado representative voting against the proposal.
Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and Mark Udall, all Colorado Democrats, supported the bill while Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., did not vote.
Many private land owners, ranchers and farmers who have owned their land for generations have worried the Army would try to expand by using eminent domain to force them to give up their land.
The Army has said it hopes to expand by working with landowners willing to sell.
