President Donald Trump killed a bipartisan rural water bill this week that would have funded a pipeline to bring clean water to 50,000 residents in southeast Colorado.
, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, both of Colorado, sought to jumpstart a project that has languished since 1962. The bill, one of two vetoed by Trump on Tuesday, would extend the repayment period for the project and lower the interest rate. It passed both chambers of Congress by voice vote earlier this year.
The project would build a 130-mile pipeline to bring drinking water from the Pueblo Reservoir to 39 communities east of Pueblo. Eighteen of those communities are under state enforcement orders because their groundwater has more naturally occurring radioactive materials than federal standards allow, officials said. Supporters held a groundbreaking for the project, decades in the making, in April 2023.
Trump, who has recently lashed out at Colorado for a slew of grievances, cited the project's $1.3 billion price tag and said it was supposed to be paid for by local municipalities -- not the federal government -- in his veto statement.
"Enough is enough," from Trump reads. "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."
In a statement on , Bennet, one of Colorado's two Democratic senators, said Trump's veto "isn’t governing. Itap a revenge tour."
9News the veto. In a statement to the news station, Boebert said, "If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans, that's on them." She also told the network that she hopes "this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability. Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics."
Boebert, a Republican representing Colorado's 4th Congressional District and a longtime ally of the president, recently broke with him by voting to mandate the release of the so-called Epstein files, a trove of documents about the notorious sex criminal with longtime ties to Trump.
Trump has also singled out Colorado for retribution over the state's imprisonment of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.
In Wednesday, Trump again ranted about Peters' imprisonment and Colorado's mail-in ballot elections. He concluded by saying he wishes Gov. Jared Polis and others associated with Peters' convictions "only the worst," and "may they rot in hell."
Peters is serving a in state prison for crimes related to breaking into local voting machines in an effort to prove the president's repeated and unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump has pardoned Peters, though he has no jurisdiction over state-level crimes.
"Itap very disappointing that the President is hurting rural Colorado by vetoing this bipartisan and non-controversial bill -- passed unanimously by both the U.S. House and Senate -- which would have delivered on the decades-long promised Arkansas Valley Conduit and secure this much-needed supply of clean water for rural southeastern Colorado," Polis said in a statement.
In a follow-up statement after Trump wished him to rot in hell, Polis said he wished all Americans, of all political stripes and including the president, a happy New Year. He did not address whether he thinks Trump's veto is retribution against Colorado."I hope the Presidentap resolution this year is to spend less time online talking about me and more on making America more affordable by stopping his disastrous tariffs and fixing rising health care costs," Polis said.
Colorado U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, the No. 4 Democrat in the House, on Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to schedule a veto override vote "immediately." Chris Woodka, senior policy and issues manager at the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which is overseeing the project, said his team is working with Colorado's congressional delegation on next steps.
The project isn't "frivolous," he said, and the federal funding is necessary to keep the pipeline affordable for the small, rural communities that would benefit from it. Already, the project has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and state loans and grants. He pledged that it would continue -- but with the open question of the cost to locals.
"The district has worked very hard for the last 25 years to get the project going again and keep it affordable to he people in the lower valley, all that good stuff," Woodka said. "We're doing it on a track that was set in motion 25 years ago to revive it after it appeared dead before that. We're committed to doing everything we can to make sure it's successful."
U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican whose district includes Pueblo, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the veto. The bill didn't authorize new construction spending or expand the federal government's commitment, he said.
Instead, it sought to deliver on a decades-long commitment to ensure safe, reliable drinking water in rural parts of the country, he said.
"In southeastern Colorado, water infrastructure isn’t a luxury -- itap essential," Hurd wrote. "I will continue fighting for rural Colorado by working across party lines to get this project back on track and ensure our communities are not left behind."
Trump on Tuesday also vetoed legislation that would have given the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida more control of some of its tribal lands. The tribe was among groups suing the administration over an immigration detention center in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Trump appeared to acknowledge the tribe's opposition to the detention facility in a letter to Congress explaining his veto. “The Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” Trump wrote.
Both bills had bipartisan support and had been noncontroversial until the White House announced Trump's vetoes Tuesday night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
