The House adopted the conference report Wednesday on a $21 billion water resources bill, as leading Republicans in both chambers vowed to oppose a threatened White House veto.

“If the president does indeed veto this bill, I am committed to working to override the president’s veto,” said Oklahoma Republican James M. Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — and a fiscal conservative who usually backs President Bush.

Conferees reached agreement earlier this week on the Water Resources Development Act (HR 1495), which would authorize funding for flood-control, navigation and environmental projects managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The House adopted the conference report, 381-40. The Senate also may act before recessing this week.

Water bills are popular with lawmakers because they fund projects that bring jobs to their districts. The House passed a $15 billion bill April 19 by a vote of 394-25, and the Senate passed its $14 billion version May 16 by a 91-4 vote.

But conferees reached a deal that was significantly more expensive than either chamber’s bill, prompting the White House veto warning on Wednesday. Rep. John L. Mica of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, had been urging the president not to threaten a veto.

The bill would authorize 900 projects and studies, including many sought by Republicans, and Mica said GOP lawmakers would have a strong incentive to override a presidential veto.

“With the backlog of members’ projects and not having a bill since 2000, I think it would be difficult to sustain his veto,” Mica said.

The administration objected to the bill’s overall cost as well as provisions that would shift the cost of some projects from non-federal entities to taxpayers.

The White House said the measure authorizes some projects outside the legislation’s scope, such as abandoned mine reclamation and wastewater and drinking water infrastructure.

“The corps already has an enormous backlog of ongoing projects that will require future appropriations of more than $38 billion to complete,” administration officials said in a letter to James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Adding excessive new authorizations to this backlog is unaffordable and unnecessary.”

The bill would authorize $1.9 billion for the restoration of coastal Louisiana and $3.6 billion for projects on the upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway system. It would authorize the first three projects of an Everglades restoration plan.

A centerpiece of the legislation is a new independent peer review process for expensive or controversial Army Corps of Engineers projects.

That language is meeting criticism from environmentalists and taxpayer watchdog groups who say it has been watered down from the version originally included in the Senate bill.

First posted Aug. 1, 2007 4:14 p.m.