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President Trump used his veto power this week for the first time since returning to the White House, rejecting a pair of bipartisan bills designed to make it easier to build a water pipeline in Colorado and give a Native American tribe more control over a portion of the Everglades.
Mr. Trump vetoed the two bills on Monday, the White House announced on X, after they were sent to his desk earlier this month. The bills had backers in both parties, and they passed the House and Senate through voice votes. Both houses of Congress would need to pass the bills again by a two-thirds margin to override the president’s veto.
It’s fairly rare for the president to exercise his veto power, especially when the president’s party controls Congress. Mr. Trump vetoed 10 bills in his first term, all during his last two years in office, and former President Joe Biden used the veto power 13 times while in office.
One of the bills — the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act — would have added a small village called the Osceola Camp to a section of the Florida Everglades that the Miccosukee Native American Tribe has control over. It would also require the Department of the Interior to take action to protect structures in the village from flooding.
The bill was backed by Florida Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, and by GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez and Democratic Rep. Darren Soto. Shortly before it passed the House in July, Gimenez said the bill was “about fairness and conservation.”
“It ensures the Miccosukee Tribe has the autonomy to protect their homes, land and their way of life,” Gimenez said in a speech on the House floor.
But in a message to Congress on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said the project benefits “special interests” — and accused the tribe of not cooperating with his immigration policies.
He wrote that “despite seeking funding and special treatment from the Federal Government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”
Earlier this year, the tribe joined a lawsuit challenging an immigration detention center in the Everglades that state and federal officials refer to as “Alligator Alcatraz.” The tribe has argued the facility could hurt the surrounding environment, impacting the tribe’s ability to hunt and hold ceremonies on the land.
The president also argued that the Osceola Camp was originally created without authorization, writing, “it is not the Federal Government’s responsibility to pay to fix problems in an area that the Tribe has never been authorized to occupy.”
CBS News has reached out to the tribe for comment.
The other piece of legislation that faced a presidential veto this week was the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. That bill was aimed at completing a long-planned water pipeline that could serve some 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado.
The pipeline was first proposed during President John F. Kennedy’s administration, part of a series of water projects in Colorado. But it was never built, in part because federal law required local communities to pay for it, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. A 2009 law changed the funding breakdown and allowed local governments to pick up only 35% of the tab. The bill that was passed this year would have reduced those local entities’ interest payments and given them more time to repay the costs.
Mr. Trump said he vetoed the bill as part of a broader push to cut “taxpayer handouts.” He pointed to the pipeline’s expected price tag — the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimated in 2023 it would cost about $1.4 billion, double the projected price seven years earlier.
The president argued the legislation “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.”
The bill was backed by the state’s two Democratic senators and by Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd, whose districts include areas that would be served by the pipeline.
Boebert told CBS News in a statement the veto was “very disappointing,” writing: “This fight is not over.”
Boebert castigated the veto in a separate statement to local reporter Kyle Clark, calling the bill “completely non-controversial” and saying she hopes Mr. Trump’s veto “has nothing to do with political retaliation.”
“I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects,” Boebert wrote. “My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape.”
Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado also strongly criticized the president’s decision, writing on X: “Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean drinking water.”
Fellow Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet accused the president of seeking “revenge.”
Boebert drew attention earlier this year by breaking with Mr. Trump and signing a petition to force a House vote on a bill to release files on Jeffrey Epstein. The bill ultimately passed by nearly unanimous margins after Mr. Trump endorsed it.
Mr. Trump has also lashed out at Colorado officials over the case of Tina Peters, a former GOP county election official who was convicted and sentenced to a multiyear prison sentence for tampering with voting machines. He said in August he would take “harsh measures” if she isn’t released from custody.
