President Donald Trump issued the first vetoes of his second term Tuesday, blocking bills that would support a pair of bipartisan infrastructure projects in Colorado and Florida.
Trump’s veto of the Colorado bill, the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, which Congress unanimously approved earlier in December, enraged the state’s lawmakers. The bill would reduce the payments local communities must provide to the federal government for the construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a pipeline poised to provide clean drinking water to rural communities in Colorado.
In a message to Congress after vetoing the legislation, Trump said the bill would “continue the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project — a local water project that, as initially conceived, was supposed to be paid for by the localities using it.”
“Enough is enough. My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies,” he said.
Bipartisan Colorado lawmakers who pushed the bill erupted after the veto, vowing Congress will override it. Some argued that Trump is making good on his vow for retribution after Colorado refused to free Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted last year of crimes relating to the breach of voting machines after the 2020 election.
