WASHINGTON >> President \u200cDonald Trump vetoed a major drinking water project in Colorado, drawing immediate condemnation from Colorado Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert, a former loyal MAGA ally who also recently challenged Trump over the Jeffrey Epstein files.<\/p>\n
The White House announced Trump\u2019s veto of the Finish the Arkansas \u200dValley Conduit Act, which was approved unanimously by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and a second measure affecting a Florida project, late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
They were the first two vetoes of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
The veto of the Colorado project \u200bcame after Trump\u2019s vow to retaliate against the state for keeping \u200bhis ally Tina Peters in prison, despite his attempt to pardon her earlier in the month, and Boebert\u2019s action to force the release of the government\u2019s files on the late convicted sexual offender Epstein.<\/p>\n
Peters, a former Colorado county \u200dclerk, is serving a nine-year prison term after being convicted on state charges for illegally tampering \u200bwith voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s pardon \u2060covers only federal charges and the state has refused to release Peters.<\/p>\n
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!<\/p>\n
Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!<\/p>\n
Boebert, who sponsored the bill, condemned Trump\u2019s veto of what she called a \u201ccompletely non-controversial, bipartisan bill\u201d in a statement on X, adding her hope is that \u201cthis veto \u2060has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill was aimed at funding a decades-long project to bring safe drinking water to 39 communities in Colorado\u2019s Eastern Plains, where the groundwater is high in salt, and wells sometimes unleash radioactivity into the water supply.<\/p>\n
In his letter to Congress, Trump said he vetoed the measure to prevent \u201cAmerican taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear if \u2060the Republican leaders in Congress would allow a vote to override Trump\u2019s veto.<\/p>\n
Boebert \u200dwas one of four Republican lawmakers, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who played a key role in forcing the release of Justice Department files on Epstein. Trump had fought the release of \u200dthe files for months before ending his opposition.<\/p>\n
The White House said Trump had \u200balso vetoed a measure to spend $14 million to protect \u200dan area known as Osceola Camp within the Everglades National Park that is inhabited by members of the Miccosukee tribe of Native Americans, which has fought Trump\u2019s makeshift immigrant detention center \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d in the Everglades. A federal judge has now ordered the detention center to be shut down.<\/p>\n
Trump said the tribe was never authorized to inhabit the Osceola Camp \u200barea, and his administration would not support projects for special interests, especially those \u201cunaligned\u201d with his immigration policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON >> President \u200cDonald Trump vetoed a major drinking water project in Colorado, drawing immediate condemnation from Colorado…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,5741,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-102122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-national-news","12":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}