The Biden administration and House Republican leadership have struck a deal on a government funding package, but it remains unclear if US Congress will have enough time to pass the proposal before Saturday, when many federal agencies are expected to run out of money.
Joe Biden said on Tuesday that an agreement had been reached, and he urged lawmakers to move as swiftly as possible to get the bill to his desk and avert a partial government shutdown this weekend.
“We have come to an agreement with congressional leaders on a path forward for the remaining full-year funding bills,” Biden said in a statement. “The House and Senate are now working to finalize a package that can quickly be brought to the floor, and I will sign it immediately.”
The House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, confirmed that negotiators had reached a deal on funding the Department of Homeland Security through the rest of the fiscal year, which had become the final sticking point in the talks.
The negotiators had already closed out five of the six remaining appropriations bills, but disputes over border security funding prevented them from announcing a deal over the weekend. The exact details of the DHS deal were not immediately clear, as lawmakers waited to review the text of the legislation on Tuesday.
“House and Senate committees have begun drafting bill text to be prepared for release and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible,” Johnson said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Congressional leaders are now in a race against the clock to pass the funding bill before 12.01am on Saturday, when roughly 70% of the federal government will shut down unless another spending package is approved. Earlier this month, Biden signed a bill to fund the remaining 30% of the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on 30 September. But the departments of state, defense, labor, education and others still face a funding cliff on Saturday.
The timeline will be tight, as House Republican leaders prefer to give members at least 72 hours to review legislation before holding a vote. That would set the final House vote for Friday at the earliest, leaving the Senate with just hours to pass the bill before the shutdown deadline.
In order to accomplish that, all senators will need to unanimously agree on expediting the bill’s passage, and that could prove difficult given past objections from some hard-right members of the upper chamber, such as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. If no such time agreement is reached, then a short shutdown may ensue, but it would probably have little impact on federal agencies as long as the Senate can still pass the bill over the weekend.
Once Biden signs the spending bill, the entire federal government will be funded through the rest of the fiscal year. The resolution would end a months-long standoff that has forced Congress to pass four stopgap spending bills since the fiscal year began in October, but members will not get much of a reprieve from their appropriations duties. Congressional hearings are already being held this week to discuss next year’s budget.
