By PETER ROPER | proper@chieftain.com | Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2011 12:00 am

A ban that blocks the Army from spending any money to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site is part of the $915 billion omnibus spending bill passed by the House on Friday.

The funding ban, first put into the federal budget in 2007 by Colorado Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and John Salazar, has been a key obstacle in the six-year-old conflict between the Army and Southeastern Colorado ranchers over the 238,000-acre training range northeast of Trinidad.

Rep. Scott Tipton, the Republican who replaced Salazar in the 3rd Congressional District this year, had to scramble last spring to make certain the ban was retained in the continuing budget resolution that kept the federal government operating this year. But he made certain the ban was retained in the omnibus spending bill that lawmakers are adopting for the new year.

"I continue to stand with the ranching community of Pinon Canyon and am working to ensure they have certainty. The funding ban extension is a step to providing that certainty," Tipton said in a statement Friday.

The Senate was expected to pass the spending bill as soon as today and send it to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature.

Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Anderson, commander of the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson, told reporters two weeks ago that official Army policy - as spelled out in a letter from Army Secretary John McHugh - is there will be no consideration of expanding Pinon Canyon for at least five years.

 That letter was written at the request of Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., earlier this year.

But the ranchers and other critics who have fought the Army since 2006 to thwart anyeffort to expand the prairie training range remain skeptical of the Army's reassurances. Those groups, such as the Not 1 More Acre! and the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, intend to keep the annual funding ban in the federal budget until they can get a stronger measure through Congress.