House and Senate leaders announced agreement Wednesday on half of the fiscal 2024 spending bills, including those covering the Agriculture Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.
The agreement will avert a partial government shutdown this weekend when the latest extension of four of the 12 annual spending bills expires.
The leadership deal will give Congress until March 8 to pass the first six FY24 bills – Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice and Science, Energy and Water Development, Interior, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD. The text of the legislation was to be released later.
The remaining six bills, which include Defense and Labor-HHS, are to be passed by March 22, under the agreement.
Lawmakers will take up a continuing resolution this week to keep all departments and agencies funded until the new deadlines.
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Under a CR passed in January, the Agriculture, Energy-Water, Transportation-HUD and Military Construction measures are funded only through Friday. Departments and agencies covered by the remaining eight FY24 bills are funded through March 8.
“We are in agreement that Congress must work in a bipartisan manner to fund our government,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a joint statement.
Fiscal 2024 started Oct. 1. The government has been funded by a series of CRs since then that maintain FY23 levels.
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