House Overrides Clean Water Act Veto, 401-26

The House, drawing first blood in the spending battles facing the 100th Congress, voted overwhelmingly today to override President Reagan’s veto of popular $20-billion clean water legislation.

The action, on a 401-26 vote, came shortly after Reagan made a final plea to GOP members to support his position that the public works legislation is too costly.

The vote sent the issue to the Senate, which is scheduled to take its override vote later this week and where even Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas all but conceded defeat.

House GOP Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois had urged his Republican colleagues to stand by their President. Michel said that while he had previously voted for the bill, the veto “changes the complexion of the situation.”

But the White House got no help from Reps. John Paul Hammerschmidt (R-Ark.) and Arlan Stangeland (R-Miss.), who had been among the Republicans most active in drafting the vetoed bill.

“I believe President Reagan has listened to the wrong advice,” Stangeland said before the vote. “This body needs to send a strong message to the President and the American people that this Congress won’t tolerate delays in the cleaning up of American waters.”

Hammerschmidt said Reagan’s argument that the bill is too expensive was reminiscent of that used in 1972 when President Richard M. Nixon vetoed the legislation creating the clean water program. Nixon’s veto was also overridden.

When he vetoed the bill last Friday, Reagan acknowledged that he faced probable defeat on Capitol Hill. Before today’s 11th-hour effort, members from both sides of the Capitol said the President was making no effort to round up votes to save the veto.

“I see no sign he’s putting together his troops,” Sen. Quentin N. Burdick (D-N.D.), Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairman, said Monday. “As far as I can tell, he’s not even trying.”

The bill would authorize $18 billion in grants to help cities build sewage treatment plants over nine years. Last month, Reagan offered a bill worth much less but congressional leaders rejected it immediately.

An additional $2 billion would be allotted for cleanups of lakes, rivers and estuaries. The bill also would extend and strengthen pollution control programs under the Clean Water Act of 1972.