Congress Gives Final Approval to Spending Measure That Would Stave Off Shutdown

WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday gave final approval to a short-term spending bill that would punt the threat of a government shutdown to just before Thanksgiving, giving lawmakers an additional two months to resolve their differences over paying for President Trump’s policies.

The measure ensures that all federal agencies and departments, as well as a number of health care and community programs, will maintain their funding through Nov. 21, just before Congress is scheduled to depart Washington for its Thanksgiving break. The Senate voted 82 to 15 to pass the bill, clearing it for the White House just days before funding was set to expire on Oct. 1. Mr. Trump is expected to sign it.

“That’s the easy part,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Thursday in a floor speech. “The hard part is getting a bipartisan appropriations process back on track.”

That task promises to be a difficult one, given bitter differences between Democrats and Republicans over several elements of Mr. Trump’s agenda, none more acute than the disputes over financing construction of a wall on the southwestern border, and his immigration policies.

Ahead of the vote, the lawmakers tasked with producing the dozen annual spending bills tussled over efforts to allocate $5 billion for the border wall.

The funding is part of the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, which allocates money for carrying out the administration’s hard-line immigration policies. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill for a vote on the floor, with only one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, joining Republicans to advance it.

“This bill does present challenges, as we all know,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, the West Virginia Republican in charge of the subcommittee that crafted the homeland security legislation. She assured her colleagues that the other agencies within the department — including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service — would be adequately funded.

But Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the subcommittee’s top Democrat, reminded his colleagues that the president has redirected funds from across government agencies to the southwestern border wall, asking, “Why are we rewarding these tactics with another $5 billion?” The panel rejected the amendment to remove that money from the legislation, with Republicans arguing that the money would also provide for roads, gates, cameras and sensors as well as additional fencing.

Mr. Tester, along with his Democratic colleagues, unsuccessfully pushed to add language that would prevent money for military construction projects from being diverted to the border wall. It failed, one day after the Senate approved a resolution to terminate the national emergency that Mr. Trump has declared at the border, allowing him to take money that Congress provided for other purposes and steer it to building the wall.

“I take very seriously the role we have, as appropriators, to ensure that we are able to express the will of the legislative body and not just echo what may be requested of us,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. But she voted — “reluctantly,” she said — against the change, which she said belonged instead on a bill to fund military construction.

Republicans delayed a full committee hearing on that measure. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said the action had been postponed because his fellow Democrats had planned to offer a similar provision to block money from being diverted to wall construction, and, he said, “we were going to prevail.”

The overall process, traditionally hailed as a bipartisan one, has also been stymied in part because of disagreements over funding levels for some of the bills or what constituted so-called poison pills, partisan policy items that could prevent the legislation from garnering the necessary 60 votes on the Senate floor.

“It’s no secret that we’ve had mixed success,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We still have a long way to go in fulfilling our duty to fund the government.”

Mr. Shelby is expected to discuss the effort to pass the 12 annual bills with Mr. Trump in the coming days.

Lawmakers also unanimously agreed to send four additional spending bills to the Senate floor, though some Democratic senators signaled they would side with the Democrat-led House on some provisions when the two chambers meet to reconcile their legislation.

If members of Congress cannot reach a funding compromise with the administration, including for the Department of Homeland Security and military construction projects, they may have to resort to a stopgap spending bill for the remainder of the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Such legislation would maintain last year’s funding levels, in effect nullifying some of the spending increases negotiated in the budget agreement that congressional leaders and the administration reached this year. The July agreement established a nearly $1.4 trillion framework for defense and domestic programs, but the dozen bills lay out how that money will be divided across the federal government.

With the passage of the stopgap spending bill on Thursday, senators have less than two months to pass the legislation through the full chamber, negotiate a dozen bills with the House and secure the president’s signature.

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