U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert delivers a victory speech on the importance of uniting the Republican Party and “taking back our country” during an observer event on June 25, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Fraieli/Colorado Newsline)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to support President Donald Trump’s two vetoes of noncontroversial measures backed by members of both parties.
Several Republicans voted with Democrats to override the veto, giving both bills a majority that was still brief of the necessary two-thirds.
Just before the New Year, Trump vetoed two bills passed by Congress without any recorded opposition in either chamber last year. These were the first vetoes of his second term.
One bill would reduce the interest that Coloradans in the Arkansas River Valley must pay to build a water pipeline to Pueblo communities. The vote to adopt this bill failed 248-177.
The second would require the Department of the Interior to protect structures at Camp Osceola, Florida, from flooding. This vote failed 236-188.
Trump said either solution would be too costly for federal taxpayers.
Colorado members call for replacement
The Colorado bill’s sponsor, Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, urged her colleagues to override the veto in a speech Thursday.
“Contrary to what the veto message states, my bill does not authorize any additional federal funding,” Boebert said Thursday. “This simply modifies the repayment terms for small rural municipalities in my district so that they can afford to pay the 35% share of the project cost that they are statutorily obligated to repay.”
The bill extends Obama-era repayment terms for the local share of project costs approved by the federal government in 1962.
The White House’s Dec. 29 veto announcement said the measure would “continue the failed policies of the past by forcing federal taxpayers to shoulder an even greater share of the enormous costs of a local water project – a local water project that was originally intended to pay for the localities that benefited from it.”
Members demand political revenge
Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat from Colorado, supported Boebert’s argument but added stronger words in objecting to Trump’s veto.
“This bill, as noted, will cost taxpayers virtually nothing and delivers on its promise to rural Colorado residents,” he said. “We are here because… the president has declared war on our country.”
Neguse, Republican Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, and Democrat Jared Huffman of California, ranking House Natural Resources Committee, said the vetoes were part of political retaliation by the White House, though they offered no additional context.
“Nobody voted against this bill,” Wasserman Schultz said. “This bill is uncontroversial and so narrowly focused that it makes absolutely no sense beyond the desire for revenge that appears to stem from this outcome.”
Trump avoids another rebuke
The afternoon vote was expected to be the second repeal of Trump by Congress on Thursday, after five Senate Republicans joined Democrats to achievement a measure aimed at stopping the administration’s military activities in Venezuela.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, said he supports keeping the veto because he trusts the administration.
“I respect the administration’s views on this legislation and its commitment to fiscal responsibility,” Westerman said of the Colorado bill. He made a similar statement regarding the Florida bill.
