Trump rejects bipartisan bills tied to water and tribal lands

President Donald Trump used his veto power late last year to reject two bipartisan bills — moves that have drawn criticism from lawmakers and tribal leaders who say the decisions were shaped by political tensions and past legal fights as much as policy concerns.

On Dec. 30, Trump vetoed H.R. 131, the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, aimed at extending repayment terms for a decades-old water infrastructure project serving about 39 southeastern Colorado communities. The bill had passed both chambers of Congress unanimously. In his veto message, Trump said the project had become too costly and that federal taxpayers should not underwrite local water infrastructure.

But the veto drew immediate pushback from lawmakers including the bill’s sponsor Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who suggested the move may reflect political disagreements rather than fiscal considerations. Boebert recently broke ranks with the administration by pushing to release federal files on the Jeffrey Epstein case and clashed with Trump over his public pressure to release a local election official from prison. She called the veto “non-controversial” and said it unfairly harms communities that supported Trump.

This isn’t over. https://t.co/SxRacLX8fp

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 31, 2025

Trump also vetoed H.R. 504, the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act, which would have expanded flood protection infrastructure on tribal lands in the Florida Everglades. In explaining his veto, the White House said the Miccosukee Tribe had “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies” — a reference to the tribe’s participation in lawsuits against the administration’s controversial Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

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Both bills had drawn bipartisan support, and critics on Capitol Hill questioned the decision to block them. Colorado Democrats called the veto of the water bill “unacceptable,” and tribal advocates said the veto appeared tied to unrelated disputes over immigration enforcement, rather than the merits of the legislation itself.

With narrow majorities in Congress, overrides of either veto are unlikely, leaving the president’s decisions in place as he enters the new year. As Trump continues to test the boundaries between political messaging and executive power, his use of the veto is emerging as a key signal of how he intends to govern and whom he intends to target in the months ahead.

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