Schumer says Senate will pass spending bill and avert shutdown

By Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate will pass spending legislation to fund several federal agencies through September and avert a partial government shutdown that would otherwise begin at midnight, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Friday.

The $467.5 billion spending package would fund agriculture, transportation, housing, energy, veterans and other programs through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Schumer said Democrats and Republicans had reached an agreement to hold a vote before current funding for those programs expires at midnight. The chamber was expected to pass the bill and send it on to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign into law.

"Because both sides cooperated today, we've taken a major step towards our goal of fully funding the government," he said.

The package cleared a procedural hurdle earlier in the day by a bipartisan vote of 63 to 35, but further action had been put on hold for several hours due to objections from some Republicans.

The sprawling spending measure easily passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this week.

A shutdown beginning on the weekend would have far less immediate impact than one launching on a business day.

Even if approved, the legislation does not end all arguments over government spending for this fiscal year.

Still to come is the debate over a final, much more expensive bunch of bills for the military, homeland security, health programs, financial services, foreign operations and other annual funding. Congress faces a March 22 deadline for passing those.

All these bills were supposed to have been enacted into law by last Oct. 1, the start of the 2024 fiscal year. While Congress rarely meets that deadline, the debate this year has been unusually chaotic.

Far-right Republicans have pushed for deeper spending cuts to tame a $34.5 trillion national debt, leaving the House leaderless for three weeks last fall.

Congress so far has had to approve four temporary funding bills to keep agency operations limping along at their previous year's levels.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Makini Brice; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft)