Trump blocks funding for water project authorized in 1962 that just begun, protecting Tribal dwellings on unauthorized land

President Donald Trump vetoed two bills on Tuesday, one relating to the Arkansas Valley Conduit water pipeline in Colorado, and one relating to the Osceola Camp in the Everglades National Park in Florida. These two vetoes are the first two issued by Trump in his second term back in the White House.

In his veto of HR 131, also known as the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, Trump wrote that the project was initially authorized in a bill signed by President John F Kennedy back in 1962. "For decades it was unbuilt, largely because the AVC was economically unviable.  Under the original plan, the costs of the project were to be initially funded by the Federal Government, but repaid by local users, with interest, over a 50-year period following completion of construction.  But participants were unable to comply with that repayment obligation," Trump wrote. 

He said that President Barack Obama signed a bill in 2009 that reduced the repayment obligation from 100 percent to 35 percent, and also "provided that miscellaneous revenues from the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project at large would count towards the AVC cost share." Despite this, construction did not begin until 14 years later, "after the State of Colorado authorized $100 million in loans and grants for the project." 

Under the bill recently passed by Congress, the federal government would extend the repayment period to 75 years and cut the interest rate in half. "More than $249 million has already been spent on the AVC, and total costs are estimated to be $1.3 billion.  H.R. 131 would continue the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project — a local water project that, as initially conceived, was supposed to be paid for by the localities using it."

"Enough is enough.  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," Trump wrote. 

Trump also vetoed HR 504, or the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act. In rejecting it, Trump wrote, "My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding projects for special interests, especially those that are unaligned with my Administration’s policy of removing violent criminal illegal aliens from the country.  Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.  This principle carries especially heavy weight here; it is not the Federal Government’s responsibility to pay to fix problems in an area that the Tribe has never been authorized to occupy."

He wrote that under the 1998 Miccosukee Reserved Area Act, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida was authorized to permanently occupy a section of the Everglades National Park. This did not include the Osceola Camp, an area where the tribe had a residential community. That community has infrastructure including wastewater treatment and water supply, and has been experiencing flooding. The bill passed by Congress recently would require the Secretary of the Interior to take action to protect the Osceola Camp structures from flooding. 

"The Osceola Camp was constructed in 1935, without authorization, in a low area that was raised with fill material.  It served as a family residence and gift shop initially, and then later a site for air-boat rides.  None of the current structures in the Osceola Camp are over 50 years old, nor do they meet the other criteria to be considered for listing in the National Register of Historic Places," the veto stated. 

The Biden administration had developed a plan to protect and replace infrastructure at the camp, to the tune of $14 million. However, Trump noted that "the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected."