Trump vetoes the first two bills of this term

President Trump used his veto this week for the first time since returning to the White House, rejecting two bipartisan bills aimed at making it easier to build a water pipeline in Colorado and giving a Native American tribe more control over part of the Everglades.

Mr. Trump vetoed both bills on Monday, the White House announced on Monday, after they were sent to his desk earlier this month. The bills had supporters in both parties and passed the House and Senate via voice votes. Both houses of Congress would have to re-pass the bills with a two-thirds majority to override the president’s veto.

It is quite rare for the president to exercise his veto power, especially when his party controls Congress. Mr. Trump vetoed 10 bills during his first term, all in his last two years in office, and former President Joe Biden used his veto 13 times during his term.

One of the bills — the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act — would have added a small village called Osceola Camp to a section of the Florida Everglades that the Miccosukee Native American tribe controls. It would also require the Interior Department to take steps to protect village structures from flooding.

The bill was supported by Florida Republican Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, as well as Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez and Democratic Representative Darren Soto. Shortly before it passed the House in July, Gimenez said the bill was about “equity and conservation.”

“This ensures the Miccosukee Tribe has the autonomy to protect their homes, their lands and their way of life,” Gimenez said in a speech on the House floor.

But in a message to Congress on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said the plan benefits “special interests” – and accused the tribe of not cooperating with his immigration policy.

He wrote that “despite seeking funding and special treatment from the federal government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct the reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”

Earlier this year, the tribe joined a lawsuit challenge an immigration detention center in the Everglades, which state and federal officials call “Alligator Alcatraz.” The tribe argued that the facility could harm the environment, impacting the tribe’s ability to hunt and conduct ceremonies on the land.

The president also argued that the Osceola camp was originally created without authorization, writing, “it is not the federal government’s responsibility to pay to fix problems in an area that the tribe was never authorized to occupy.”

CBS News has reached out to the tribe for comment.

The other piece of legislation vetoed by the president this week was the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. This bill sought to complete a long-planned water pipeline that could serve some 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado.

The pipeline was first proposed during the administration of President John F. Kennedy, as part of a series of water projects in Colorado. But it was never built, in part because federal law required local communities to pay for it, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. A 2009 law changed the distribution of funding and allowed local governments to foot just 35 percent of the bill. The bill passed this year would have reduced interest payments for these local entities and given them more time to repay the costs.

Mr. Trump said he vetoed the bill as part of a broader campaign to cut “taxpayer assistance.” He highlighted the pipeline’s expected price tag: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimated that in 2023 it would cost about $1.4 billion, double the price projected seven years earlier.

The president argued that the legislation would “perpetuate failed policies of the past by forcing federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project.”

The bill was supported by the state’s two Democratic senators and Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd, whose districts include areas that would be served by the pipeline.

Boebert blasted the veto in a statement to local reporter Kyle Clark, calling the bill “completely non-controversial” and saying she hopes Mr. Trump’s veto “has nothing to do with political retaliation.”

“I had to miss the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects,” Boebert wrote. “It’s bad, I thought the campaign was about cutting costs and cutting red tape.”

Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado also sharply criticized the president’s decision, writing on X: “Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean water.”

Fellow Colorado Democratic senator Michael Bennet accused the president of seeking “revenge.”

Boebert gained attention earlier this year by break with Mr. Trump and sign a petition to force a House vote on a bill to release records on Jeffrey Epstein. The bill ultimately passed with a near-unanimous majority after Mr. Trump approved it.

Mr. Trump also lashed out at Colorado officials over the case of Tina Peters, a former GOP county election official who was convicted and sentenced to several years in prison for tampering with voting machines. He said in August he would take “severe action” if she was not released.