Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., isn't going to get caught by surprise this year when it comes to keeping the door closed on the Army spending any money to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad.

  Tipton represents Pueblo and the 3rd Congressional District and he sent a letter Monday to the key House subcommittee that has kept a funding ban on expanding Pinon Canyon for the past five years. The letter reminds Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's panel on military construction, to keep the funding ban in place when the panel approves the Pentagon's 2013 construction budget.

  "While a long-term solution that protects the property rights of ranchers and farmers and provides further certainty to attract new business to the region remains my ultimate goal, this language prohibiting funds from being used for expansion provides the people of my district with some added certainty in the meantime," Tipton wrote to Culberson.

  Tipton is not a member of the House Appropriations Committee, so he has to rely on Culberson or other members of the panel to include the Pinon Canyon language in the military budget bill. 

   The congressional funding ban - first put into the federal budget in 2008 by former Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and John Salazar - has been an essential obstacle in the long campaign of Southern Colorado ranchers to stop the Army from expanding the 238,000-acre training range.

   As a new congressman a year ago, Tipton missed the chance to keep the funding ban in the subcommittee's budget bill. Responding to alarm from the ranching community, he asked Culberson to restore the ban to the 2012 budget when the legislation came before the full House Appropriations Committee. Culberson did so, using his authority as a subcommittee chairman.

  The Army has not opposed the funding ban for several years, having announced last year that it had dropped any plans to expand Pinon Canyon for at least five years.

  While that letter, from Army Secretary John McHugh, was intended to soothe the ranch community, it also was an acknowledgement from the Army of the political reality that a majority of Colorado lawmakers both in Congress and the Legislature have opposed any expansion.