{"id":1316307,"date":"2019-10-31T14:32:55","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=990323"},"modified":"2019-10-31T14:32:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:32:55","slug":"house-approves-core-act-including-thompson-divide-protections-heads-to-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/house-approves-core-act-including-thompson-divide-protections-heads-to-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"House approves CORE Act, including Thompson Divide protections; heads to Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Signs supporting the Thompson Divide Coalition still dot Carbondale.<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Permanent protections for the Thompson Divide passed a major milestone Thursday when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve the CORE Act.<\/p>\n

Local conservationists, outdoor groups, ranchers and communities have advocated for more than a decade to permanently withdraw 200,000 acres of the Thompson Divide from future oil and gas development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have
\nbeen working to permanently protect the Thompson Divide for over a decade, and
\ntoday\u2019s vote is a significant step toward the finish line,\u201d said Curtis
\nKaufman, board president of the Thompson Divide Coalition.<\/p>\n

The bill
\npassed the House 227 \u2013 182, mostly along party lines. Only five Republicans
\nvoted for the CORE Act, and none of them represented Colorado.<\/p>\n

Rep. Scott
\nTipton, whose district includes the Thompson Divide and much of the areas
\naffected by the CORE Act, voted nay despite successfully amending the bill
\nleading up to the final vote.<\/p>\n

The final
\nversion of the House bill included two late amendments Wednesday from Rep.
\nScott Tipton, one of them to \u201censure grazing permitted at the time of enactment
\nmay continue in Thompson Divide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another
\nTipton amendment adopted Wednesday stated that nothing in the act would imply
\nfederal water rights in the Curecanti National Recreation Area.<\/p>\n

A third Tipton amendment was not accepted. Tipton spent the final moments of the debate Thursday expressing concerns about the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (HAATS) located in Gypsum.<\/p>\n

In a
\nstatement, Tipton said the CORE Act still lacks local support and input from
\nWestern Slope communities.<\/p>\n

Tipton acknowledged the years of work that went into crafting the bill, but said \u201cin its current form the bill has not adequately incorporated the necessary feedback from the Western Slope communities which the bill predominately impacts,\u201d Tipton said.<\/p>\n

Bill
\nsponsor Rep. Joe
\nNeguse, a Democrat from Boulder, and Sen. Michael Bennet, sponsor of the Senate
\nversion, vehemently disagreed with that characterization.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s
\nimportant to clarify the facts, which is that ultimately, this bill does in
\nfact have the support of every single local jurisdiction that is impacted
\ndirectly by the bill,\u201d Neguse said.<\/p>\n

On the Thompson Divide issue, Garfield County commissioners wavered in their support, but eventually stated in a letter that they have no issue with the Thompson Divide language<\/a>. They would not, however, endorse the CORE Act as a whole.<\/p>\n

Tipton presented a letter from Montrose County commissioners<\/a> who said they had not been approached to support the bill as a whole, and did not formally support the entire CORE Act. But they also wrote that they had no issue with the Curecanti portion of the bill.<\/p>\n

The CORE
\nAct faces an uncertain path forward through the Senate and the president\u2019s
\ndesk.<\/p>\n

The bill would need Republican support to pass the Senate, and Sen. Cory Gardner has not endorsed it.<\/p>\n

The White
\nHouse has already stated that if the CORE Act were presented to President
\nDonald Trump in its current form, he would likely veto it, the
\nColorado Sun reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bennet said
\nhe has approached the leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
\nCommittee and asked for a hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think
\nthere\u2019s no reason why this shouldn\u2019t have a hearing in the Senate committee.
\nWe\u2019ll take it one step at a time,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Signs supporting the Thompson Divide Coalition still dot Carbondale. Permanent protections for the Thompson Divide passed a major milestone Thursday when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve the CORE Act. Local conservationists, outdoor groups, ranchers and communities have advocated for more than a decade to permanently withdraw 200,000 acres of the Thompson Divide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1316307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 05:26:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}