Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act--Veto Message From the President of the United States

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, in 1962, Congress authorized a 130-mile pipeline, known as the Arkansas Valley Conduit, to deliver clean, reliable water to communities in southeastern Colorado. More than 60 years later, the project remains uncompleted, while communities in the region continue to face unreliable water supplies and serious water quality challenges.

The drinking water sources they rely on are often contaminated with unsafe levels of radium, uranium, and other pollutants. Treating these contaminants places a significant burden on rural communities and forces many families to rely on bottled water or expensive filtration systems to meet basic needs that we all take for granted.

The Arkansas Valley Conduit was designed to address these challenges, but the project is still not completed largely because the communities that it will serve do not have the financial capacity to meet the traditional repayment obligations. They need our help.

For over a decade, the Colorado delegation has worked to advance this project so that families in southeastern Colorado can finally have access to clean, safe drinking water. Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper helped secure $500 million through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for this project that was a major step toward completion.

Last year, this body worked in a bipartisan manner to pass H.R. 131. Now, as introduced, Representative Boebert's bill did raise some concerns about removing interest payments and extending the repayment period, but our colleagues in the Senate worked to address these shared concerns, and we in the Natural Resources Committee came together to build on that work to ensure that this legislation addresses the real water reliability challenges facing the people of southeastern Colorado while remaining consistent with core reclamation law principles.

Together, Congress sent the President a carefully negotiated and narrowly tailored bipartisan bill to support the completion of this project.

The administration has no problem subsidizing water for certain stakeholders, including large-scale agricultural projects, yet when it comes to a tailored bill to ensure access to safe drinking water for rural communities, unfortunately, the President has taken a different path.

Now, we are going to talk about the merits of this bill today, I am sure, but we all know that this veto has nothing to do with fiscal policy, nothing to do with the merits. There has been extensive reporting that raises broader concerns about the administration's posture toward the State of Colorado and even toward the sponsor of this bill.

We know what this veto was about, and the message that that sends to Colorado and communities awaiting the completion of the Arkansas Valley Conduit is deeply troubling.

Meanwhile, and the good news, is that this Congress has kept working to find a solution, and the legislation before us today is reasonably negotiated and bipartisan. It is going to help communities who have waited too long to finally have clean water.

I thank my colleagues for their commitment to working with us to reach the language before us today. I am deeply disappointed that the President chose to veto a bill that would help communities gain access to clean drinking water. The communities of southeastern Colorado deserve better, and today we have a bipartisan opportunity to do that for them.

I really, in this moment, could care less about Ms. Boebert's politics or Mr. Hurd's politics. What I see before us is a piece of legislation that does an awful lot of good for people, a bill that was carefully negotiated, is bipartisan, and is common sense.

It is a water infrastructure bill, and every Member of this House looked past their political differences and did the right thing when we passed this unanimously out of the House of Representatives. That was Congress just doing its job.

If a noncontroversial, bipartisan, good bill like this can be taken hostage and become a weapon for settling political scores, well, it may not be in your State, it may not be in your district, but that could happen and will happen to any of us.

Mr. Speaker, this may seem like a little water infrastructure bill, but this is a bigger moment than that. This is a bit of a Spartacus moment for the Members of this body because any of us could face this, and we are about to find out.

I hope the people of this country are watching. I know history is actually going to be watching what happens here because if Congress is able to override this veto, it is a statement that even in a moment of extreme polarization, dysfunction, and conflict, we were able to get some work done. That would be Congress doing its job. If we fail to override this veto, that would say something much, much more troubling.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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