Happy new year to *all* of us?!

January 1, 2026. Last night, I was tooling along, making measurable progress on uploading documents to my legislative research page. TCU beat USC in a thriller, Texas whupped Michigan, so all’s right with the world. I’m not a big fan of televised boozefests, aka broadcast networks’ New Year’s Eve shows. And it is way too cold to venture out for Gettysburg’s festival (sorry, Pam and Waldkind!).

Now that I’ve finally figured out a method for organizing proposed legislation, I’m finding that I enjoy it. I am learning that Democrats are in fact working to right the ship—out of sight of cameras and influencers—and the harm inflicted on all of us by proposed Republican legislation.

But. I have to pause to say: Happy new year to all of us?!

Previously I’ve mentioned my astonishment that Lauren Boebert is working with congressional Democrats on legislation that would undo provisions of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that irrevocably harm the health of Americans (like me) who live in rural communities. There’s strong bipartisan effort on that topic. Of course, Mike Johnson is blocking all of it, but Republicans are joining Democrats to reverse the damage.

And Lauren Boebert is leading the fray. I know. I see hell freezing over too.

Working hard, uploading documents to my legislative research page. Specifically regarding infrastructure legislation. Checking updates on legislation already in Word documents. Click click click. Type type type. Edit type click copy paste click.

Wait a minute. Lauren Boebert’s H.R.131 passed the House and the Senate? What? That means it’s an actual piece of legislation in our Do Nothing 2025.

First time around reading that bill, I understood it as pork for Colorado. And it is, sort of. There’s a pipeline under construction to transport water from the Pueblo Reservoir in Colorado to the Arkansas River Valley in the Ozarks of western Arkansas. Construction has stalled for financial reasons.

Boebert proposed that the good people in Arkansas and Colorado not pay interest on the loans and bonds taken out to build this pipeline. Her bill also extends loan repayment to 100 years. Unsurprisingly, H.R.131 found immense support not only in Colorado, but also in Arkansas.

Although H.R.131 initially was fairly partisan, with Republican support and little from the Democratic side, by the time it reached the Senate, the project had gained bipartisan support. It’s infrastructure and most importantly, it is water. That tends to be a topic both Democrats and Republicans can agree upon.

After all the stops and starts resulting from the government shutdown, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources referred the bill to the full Senate for a vote on December 16. As we learned from Schoolhouse Rock, that meant the next stop was President Trump’s desk. December 18, H.R.131 was presented to the president for signature.

Where it sat for almost two full weeks. No signature.

On the last day of 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued his first veto of his second administration. He vetoed Rep. Lauren Boebert’s H.R.131. Flipped off Colorado, Arkansas… and Lauren Boebert.

Wow. Just wow. This goes beyond pigs flying. This is FAFO, if not FAFAOMGFFSFO. This is leopards’ publicly devouring faces. In your face. On steroids.

Quick notes about infrastructure legislation in 2025: Democrats in the House and Senate, and without Republicans, introduced Price Gouging Prevention Acts that apply to every entity in a supply chain (not just end seller). There’s a report about G5 wireless, another about vulnerabilities in the electric grid.

Republicans want to undo energy efficiency. Democrats are fighting to expand it. There’s bipartisan support for several bits of legislation affecting water.

And Ted Cruz introduced a bipartisan bill (I know, that hell freezing over thang) that would require aircraft to be equipped with “automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast” to improve aviation safety. Cruz’s bill passed the Senate on December 17. Mike Johnson hasn’t bothered to assign it to a committee (“held at the desk”).

There’s bipartisan legislation to take on robocallers and cell-site simulators. And a bill that would mandate that those 9/11 fees we pay every time we purchase an airline ticket would actually go towards airport security. Right now, it’s just “found money.”

There’s Republican legislation that grants prison officials the right to block cellphones of anyone (not just prisoners). Joni Ernst wants to terminate a 1936 bill that helps rural areas with broadband. While a bipartisan group in the House wants the FCC to identify gaps in rural broadband coverage.

And Sen. Mike Lee, Republican from that great coastal state of … checks notes… Utah?, introduced multiple bills benefiting cruise ships. Like three. All with no cosponsors. Hey, Royal Caribbean and Viking, I found your missing lobbyists!

(For my purposes, “infrastructure” includes FAA, FCC, FTC, transportation, WiFi (Internet) and broadband, and broadcast rights.)

Questions? Comments? Speak your mind below. Before doing so, please log in using the email address that corresponds to your orders or newsletter subscription. Note: MARKDOWN is the app's label for formatting shortcuts.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to leave me a tip, I would be grateful! Buy Me A Coffee!

Return to Policies, Not Politics index. Return to Thinking out loud index. Return to separation of powers index.

© 2026 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact me for permission to quote.

Image credits: All Shopify, public domain for platform users.

No part of this post may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the “fair use” of quotations that are properly cited and credited, including identification of the translator if applicable. No part of this post may be included in any Large Language Model without proper licensing from the copyright holder, Denise Elaine Heap.