WASHINGTON (AP)
Congress approved a $555 billion annual spending bill Wednesday that contains millions of dollars for Montana, including money for the state's universities, water projects and roads. The wide-ranging bill also includes language that would prevent the Montana slogan "The Last Best Place" from being trademarked for the next year. The bill, if signed into law, would prevent Las Vegas businessman David E. Lipson, who owns the Resort at Paws Up in the Blackfoot Valley, from obtaining several trademarks of the phrase. The provision would cut off the funding needed to process his applications. Some Montana projects included in the bill, according to the state's congressional delegation: $9.8 million for the Fort Peck-Dry Prairie Rural Water System; $7 million for a community activity center at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls; $3.9 million to build a highway bypass around Kalispell; $916,500 for the Montana Meth Project, which uses advertising to combat teen meth use; $885,960 for a study to look at the environmental effects of a proposed Canadian coal mine just north of Glacier National Park. Montana lawmakers have expressed concern the mine would pollute water in the Flathead River system, which spans the British Columbia-Montana border; $328,300 for the construction of Cobb baseball field in Billings, an earmark that was unsuccessfully challenged on the Senate floor by an Oklahoma senator who said it was an example of government waste. Millions more will go to the Montana universities for research projects, along with dollars to improve facilities, roads and health care centers around the state. The bill now heads to President Bush's desk for his signature.
