President Donald Trump this week issued the first vetoes of his second term in office, rejecting two bills that passed Congress with bipartisan support.
Trump on Monday vetoed a pipeline measure and legislation that would include more land for the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida, the White House said on X.
The pipeline bill, known as the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, passed both the House and the Senate by voice vote, indicating overwhelming bipartisan support. The legislation aims to facilitate completing a pipeline project to bring clean water to southeastern Colorado.
In a letter to the House announcing the veto, Trump pointed to the history of the pipeline construction, arguing it had dragged on for too long and had cost too much money.
“Enough is enough,” Trump wrote. “My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.”
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., responded on social media, writing, “This isn’t over.”
Colorado's two senators, both Democrats, blasted Trump on social media. Sen. Michael Bennet called Trump’s veto a “revenge tour,” and Sen. John Hickenlooper accused him of “playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean drinking water.”
Hickenlooper encouraged Congress to overturn the veto, which would require two-thirds majority votes in both chambers.
The other bill Trump vetoed, known as the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act, would expand the Miccosukee Reserved Area in Florida to include part of the Everglades National Park known as Osceola Camp. It also passed Congress by voice vote.
The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., whose office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's veto.
In his letter explaining the veto, Trump accused the Miccosukee Tribe of seeking “to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”
Trump vetoed 10 bills during his first term; only one of the vetoes was overridden by Congress. The first veto came two years into his term, on a Senate joint resolution that sought to terminate a national emergency he had declared on the Southern border.
