WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper released the following statement after the House of Representatives failed to overturn President Trump’s veto of his Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC) Act.
“This is Washington at its worst. Every single U.S. House member supported this bill to bring clean water to Southeastern Colorado before Christmas — Democrats and Republicans.
“But today they refused to stick to their guns and override President Trump’s retaliatory veto. Rural Colorado is paying the price for these political games.”
In an op-ed for MS Now, formerly MSNBC, Hickenlooper and Bennet criticized Trump’s reckless decision and called on both the House and the Senate to vote to override the President’s veto.
The Arkansas Valley Conduit is the final component of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, a water diversion and storage project in the lower Arkansas Valley, which Congress approved in 1962. Once constructed, the Conduit will deliver clean drinking water from the Pueblo Reservoir to more than 50,000 families and municipalities throughout 39 communities in the Lower Arkansas River Valley.
The Finish the AVC Act would remove interest payments on all non-federal cost share funds and extend the repayment period from 50 to 100 years. This bill helps make sure that underserved communities of Southeastern Colorado can access clean drinking water and repay the federal government. The estimated cost of the project more than doubled from the 2019 estimate of $640 million to $1.3 billion due to increased inflation and labor costs.
Hickenlooper and Bennet have long advocated for increased federal funding for the AVC and will continue pushing to complete the project. They reintroduced the bipartisan Finish the AVC Act in January last year. Both senators helped deliver $500 million in funding for the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the AVC, including $250 million, $90 million earlier this year, $100 million in 2023 and $60 million in 2022.
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