Trump says Markwayne Mullin will replace Kristi Noem as DHS secretary

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump issued vetoes for the first bills of his second term, including a bipartisan bill intended to provide funding for a water infrastructure project in Colorado, a measure that passed the House and Senate unanimously.

The Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act was set to provide clean water to rural parts of Colorado.

“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies,” Trump wrote in a veto letter sent to Congress. “Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation.”

Trump also vetoed the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendment Act, a bipartisan bill that aimed in part to optimize water flow into part of Everglades National Park designated for the Miccosukee Native American tribe and to incorporate the Osceola Camp into the Miccosukee Reserved Area to improve the governing structure of the tribe.

“[D]espite seeking funding and special treatment from the Federal Government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” Trump wrote in his veto. “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.”

The Miccosukee tribe was part of the opposition to the construction of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention facility in the Everglades.

Trump’s veto of the bipartisan bill supporting the Colorado project comes at a time when he has fractious relations with some of the state’s political leaders.

The bill was co-sponsored by House Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who defied the Trump administration by signing onto the Epstein discharge petition that forced a vote on a measure to compel the DOJ to release the files. The pipeline would provide water to residents of Boebert’s district.

“This isn’t over,” Boebert said on social media on Tuesday, responding to the White House’s veto announcement.

Democrats also are responding to the bill’s veto, with Colorado’s Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper lambasting Trump on social media, with both accusing him of playing partisan politics.

“Trump just vetoed my Arkansas Valley Conduit bill — passed unanimously to deliver clean, affordable water to Southeast Colorado,” Bennet said. “This isn’t governing. It’s a revenge tour.”

“Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean drinking water,” Hickenlooper said, adding that Congress should overturn Trump’s veto.

Since the bill cleared both chambers unanimously, Congress could overturn Trump’s veto. Doing so would require passing the measure by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. Trump vetoed ten bills total during his first administration, only one of which — the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 — was overridden by Congress.

Trump’s veto also comes two weeks after he attacked Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for refusing to release former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk Tina Peters from prison following her receiving a presidential pardon.

Peters was convicted on state charges for a scheme to tamper with voting systems driven by false claims about the 2020 election. Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes.

“The poorly run state of Colorado with a governor whose incompetent and frankly, with a governor that won’t allow our wonderful Tina to come out of a jail, in a high intensity jail because she caught people cheating on an election and they said she was cheating,” Trump said on Dec. 15.

He added, “She wasn’t cheating. She went over, she looked at one of the election scams going on. And because she did that, they put her in jail for nine years.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is pausing leases for five offshore wind projects due to “national security concerns” identified by the Department of Defense, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Monday.

“Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers,” Burgum said in a press release about the move.

The administration did not disclose what national security risks the wind farms posed, saying that the Department of Defense found the threats in “completed classified reports.”

“As for the national security risks inherent to large-scale offshore wind projects, unclassified reports from the U.S. Government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called ‘clutter.’ The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects,” the Department of the Interior said in its press release.

The action affects projects off the coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia and New York.

According to the Department of the Interior, that five leases that will be affected are: Vineyard Wind 1 (OCS-A 0501), Revolution Wind (OCS-A 0486), CVOW – Commercial (OCS-A 0483), Sunrise Wind (OCS-A 0487) and Empire Wind 1 (OCS-A 0512).

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont called the move “yet another erratic, anti-business move by the Trump administration that will drive up the price of electricity in Connecticut and throughout the region.”

“This project is nearing completion and providing good-paying clean energy jobs,” Lamont said in a statement.

Burgum wrote in an X post about the move that the projects were “expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms.”

Trump has made clear his distaste for windmills in many public events and on the campaign trail.

“Wind is the worst,” Trump said in a speech in Pennsylvania earlier this month. He added in his remarks, “We don’t want — we don’t approve windmills. We don’t approve it. I’m sorry.”

During an overseas trip to Scotland in July, Trump told Europe to “stop the windmills.”

“You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it. It’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds. And if they’re stuck in the ocean, ruining your oceans. Stop the windmills,” Trump said.

Wind is the country’s largest source of renewable energy, accounting for about 10% of electricity generated in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. Proponents say renewable energy is instrumental in reducing the global reliance on fossil fuels, and the industry continues to grow worldwide despite political challenges.

The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, criticized the Trump administration’s action on Monday.

“The Trump administration’s vengeance towards renewable energy knows no end. Instead of progressing us forward as a nation, they are obsessed with attacking a growing industry that provides good clean energy jobs and affordable, clean electricity. Americans need cheaper and more reliable energy that does not come at the expense of our health and futures,” Melinda Pierce, the group’s legislative director, said in a statement.

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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Tammy Duckworth is introducing legislation Friday that would put restraints on the current and former political appointees to be nominated as inspectors general. 

The Inspector General’s Independence Act would bar President Donald Trump and future presidents from nominating political appointees who have served or are serving in their administration from serving as an inspector general. 

“Whether this is acquisitions or our VA or DoD or Commerce or HHS, inspectors general are supposed to be calling balls and strikes and be independent and say, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,'” Duckworth told ABC News. “But if you put a political appointee in that position they are going to lean in favor of who put them there.”

The move comes nearly one year after the administration moved to unilaterally dismiss 17 inspectors general across a number of agencies at the beginning of Trump’s second term. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushed back on the administration’s move at the time, raising concerns that the firing of inspectors generals would introduce partisanship into a role that is meant to serve as an independent watchdog. Lawsuits challenging the viability of those firings are going through the courts.

“There have been lawsuits that are in courts right now that say that those firings were illegal,” Duckworth said. “So this piece of legislation in particular will make it very clear that what he did was illegal, and not just leave it to courts to interpret existing law.” 

Duckworth points to the nomination and subsequent Senate confirmation of Cheryl Mason as Veterans Affairs inspector general as one example of why the legislation is critical.

Mason was appointed to fill a vacancy left after the administration fired the previous inspector general. She was serving as a senior adviser to Trump’s Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins at the time she was nominated by the president to serve as the department’s IG.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in June, a number of Democratic lawmakers, including Duckworth, raised concerns about Mason’s ability to serve as an independent watchdog for the agency she had served in as a political adviser.

Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, the committee chairman, also raised questions about how Mason would ensure her independence, but ultimately voted with all Republicans to confirm her.

Mason at the time vowed to serve as an independent actor, citing her years of experience at VA working at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals before returning as an adviser. Her role as an adviser, she said at the time, was to gather information and convey it in a nonpartisan manner.

“I consider myself to be an impartial, independent aid to the department because that’s my role,” Mason told senators on the panel when questioned about her loyalty to the VA secretary. “I am loyal to the veterans. That’s who I am loyal to.” 

“I work for the president and the secretary,” Mason said in the hearing when pressed by Democrats about her independence. “But also if confirmed will work for this committee.”

Mason was confirmed by the Senate in July by a vote of 53-45. No Democrats voted to confirm her. 

Duckworth’s legislation would have barred Mason from being nominated. Her bill, if passed, would prevent similar politically aligned nominees from serving as IGs.

The legislation is being co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff, Kirsten Gillibrand and Peter Welch. It does not currently have any Republican co-sponsors.

It’s unclear whether it would have the necessary support to advance through either chamber of Congress, and unlikely that President Trump would sign it into law.

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