By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Legislation to avoid a looming U.S. government shutdown advanced toward passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, as Congress worked against a Feb. 18 deadline when a temporary funding measure was set to expire.
A stopgap funding bill — the third since the start of the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1 — to simply extend current funding through March 11 cleared a procedural hurdle by a vote of 221-211 in the House, setting up a vote on passage later in the day.
The Senate would then have to pass the bill before sending it to President Joe Biden for signing into law before the Feb. 18 deadline.
The legislation is intended to give House and Senate negotiators more time to work out a wide-ranging government funding bill to keep Washington operating through Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year.
“While negotiations on a full-year funding agreement continue, we will in the meantime avoid a pointless and costly government shutdown” at the end of next week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech to the Senate.
Schumer also expressed confidence that a full-year funding bill would be set in place by March 11.
Meanwhile, Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters negotiators were nearing a deal on top-line spending for such a bill. That figure might hover around $1.5 trillion.
Republicans were insisting the money be equally divided between defense and non-defense programs, while Democrats who control Congress fashioned bills providing slightly more money on the non-defense side of the ledger.
Once the framework of a bill is sketched out through an overall spending level, negotiators are expected to dive into resolving disagreements over specific line-items, such as environmental programs and border security, while also settling perennial battles over policies related to divisive issues such as abortion and Internal Revenue Service activities.
“With these basic things, a bipartisan deal should be achievable,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Sandra Maler)
