The U.S. House is expected to consider on Thursday whether to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a bill aimed at helping finance a water pipeline in Colorado.

Should it happen, it would be the first attempt at an override in Trump’s second term.

Trump vetoed H.R. 131 on Dec. 30, saying the project is a “taxpayer handout” and is expensive and unreliable. He also said Colorado residents — not federal taxpayers – should pay for the Arkansas Valley Conduit.

Some have accused Trump of playing politics with his veto, which came on the heels of his administration’s decisions to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the cancellation of hundreds of millions in energy grants, and, on Tuesday, the freezing of child care funding.

Some also suggested Trump’s actions are tied to his efforts to free former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for tampering with election equipment after the 2020 presidential election.

Trump issued a pardon to Peters, but experts said it has no legal effect because a president cannot pardon someone convicted on state charges.

The Arkansas Valley Conduit is a 130-mile pipeline that has been under construction for the past two years. The pipeline, which will run from Pueblo Reservoir to Lamar, would provide clean drinking water to 39 communities in the lower Arkansas Valley.

H.R. 131, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Windsor, whose 3rd Congressional District includes a substantial portion of the project, extends the repayment on loans to local water providers from 50 years to 100 years. It would also waive the interest on those loans.

Under current federal law, local water providers and the state are responsible for 35% of the cost. The project’s total cost is estimated at $1.39 billion, more than double the estimate just a few years ago.

The state has already contributed $100 million in grants and loans, and the federal government has invested about $500 million since 2010. Then-President John F. Kennedy approved the project in 1962 but was not funded until 2010, when the first federal dollars were awarded.

Boebert called out the president for vetoing the legislation, vowing she would push U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to call for an override vote last week.

In his veto message, Trump said the project was not built after its approval in 1962 because it was economically “unviable.”

He said 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.”

Local water providers are still on the hook for more than $450 million in project costs, he said.

H.R. 131 passed by voice vote in both the U.S. House and Senate, indicating strong support. Politico reported on Tuesday that the House will likely override the president’s veto, plus on another measure tied to the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, both sponsored by Republicans.

The bigger question is whether the U.S. Senate will do the same. That requires 67 out of 100 votes.

“It’s Southeast Colorado today — your district tomorrow,” U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Denver, earlier said on X. “If any member from either party wants actually to deliver for their constituents, they’ll stand up and send a clear message. Congress should overturn Trump’s veto on our unanimous, bipartisan bill to finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit.”

Trump lost one veto override in his first term, on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021.