US President Donald Trump on November 26, 2025. Photo source: Profimedia
US President Donald Trump used his veto right against an important drinking water project in Colorado, immediately being criticized by Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, a former loyalist of the MAGA movement, but who recently challenged Trump in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein files, Reuters notes.
The White House announced late Tuesday Trump's veto of the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC) Act, which was unanimously approved by both the House and Senate, as well as a second measure affecting a project in Florida.
These are the first cases in Trump's second presidential term in which he has used his veto.
Colorado, punished by Trump for not releasing Tina Peters
The veto of the Colorado bill came after Trump vowed to retaliate against the US state for not releasing jailed ally Tina Peters, despite his attempt to pardon her earlier this month, and Boebert's move to force the release of government files on convicted sex offender Epstein.
Peters, a former Colorado county clerk, is serving a nine-year prison sentence after being convicted of illegally tampering with voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump's pardon only covers the federal charges, and the state has refused to release Peters.
Boebert, who initiated the bill, condemned Trump's veto of this “completely non-controversial and bipartisan bill.” She wrote on X that she hopes “this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for reporting corruption and demanding accountability.”
What were the bills that Trump used his veto?
The bill aimed to fund a decades-old project to bring safe drinking water to 39 communities in Colorado's Eastern Plains, where groundwater is high in salt and wells sometimes leak radioactivity into the water supply.
In his letter to Congress, Trump said he used his veto to prevent “American taxpayers from funding costly and unsafe policies.”
It is not yet clear whether Republican leaders in Congress will allow a House vote to override Trump's veto.
Boebert was one of four Republican lawmakers, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who played a key role in forcing the release of Justice Department files on the Epstein case. Trump has opposed the release of the files for months.
The White House said Trump also vetoed a $14 million spending measure to protect an area known as Osceola Camp in Everglades National Park, inhabited by members of the Miccosukee tribe of Native Americans who opposed the makeshift “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Everglades. A federal judge has now ordered the detention center closed.
Trump said the tribe was never authorized to live in the Osceola Camp area and that his administration would not support projects for special interests, especially those “not aligned” with his immigration policies.
