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April 9, 2008
Musgrave wants GAO probe on Pinon Canyon spending


Marilyn Musgrave

By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
More than one Pinon Canyon area rancher has been angered in recent weeks over a telephone call from an Army-paid public relations firm wanting to question them about their views on the proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., has responded by asking the General Accountability Office - the investigative arm of Congress - to determine if the Army is violating the 2008 federal budget law, which include's her one-year ban on the Army spending any money on the proposed 414,000-acre expansion. Musgrave and Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., attached that ban to the budget legislation last summer and both the House and Senate approved it.

A spokesman for Musgrave said this week that she remains opposed to any expansion of the 238,000-acre training area northeast of Trinidad and believes her amendment should have blocked the Army from hiring consultants to survey landowners.

Salazar endorsed her GAO request when contacted Thursday.

"Marilyn and I have talked about it, and it's our intent to put another ban on spending in the law when the appropriate bill comes through the process this summer," Salazar said. "But I'm also looking for a more permanent way to stop this expansion."

Army officials have had a $500,000 a year contract with the Booz Allen Hamilton public relations firm to work on the Pinon Canyon expansion - but opponents thought that work was stopped when President Bush signed the budget law in January.

Fort Carson officials have denied violating the spending ban, saying they redirected Booz Allen consultants to work on reports about the Pinon Canyon project that Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard requested through the 2008 Defense Authorization Act.

Mack Louden, a board member of the Not 1 More Acre group opposed to the expansion, said he received a call from the consultants recently to ask about his opposition to the expansion.

"When I asked how they could be calling me, legally, when they were prohibited from spending money on the expansion, they said the Army was paying them out of 2007 money," Louden said in a recent interview.


Purgatoire, Apishapa & Comanche Grassland Trust
Not 1 More Acre!
PO Box 773
Trinidad, Colorado 81082

Sister organizations working for the people, wildlife and places of southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico.