US House sends $460bn spending bill to Senate, averting partial government shutdown

 By Sam Cabral

BBC News, Washington

The US House of Representatives has voted to approve a $467.5bn (£367bn) spending package, the first step in averting a partial government shutdown.

Funding for roughly 30% of the federal government - including agriculture, energy, housing and veterans' affairs - is due to expire at midnight on Friday.

The House-passed bill now goes to the US Senate, where leaders have vowed to back the measure "with time to spare".

But the threat of shutdown looms over Congress once again in just two weeks.

On Wednesday, House lawmakers voted 339-85 on the sprawling package of six funding bills, a compromise jointly agreed between House and Senate leaders after months of negotiation.

Once it passes the Senate and is signed by President Joe Biden, the 1,050-page piece of legislation would extend the funding available for dozens of federal programmes from 8 March until 30 September.

Negotiators, however, have much left to agree on before another funding deadline - on 22 March - for major government agencies such as the defence, homeland security and state departments.

Capitol Hill has been embroiled in bitter spending fights for the past six months between Republicans, who run the House, and Democrats, who lead in the Senate.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has had his work cut out for him by an increasingly narrow Republican majority and, more recently, by conservative rebels.

With the country $34.4tn in debt, the right-wing House Freedom Caucus has demanded spending cuts that often go much deeper than what their Democratic colleagues would accept.

But Mr Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that Republicans "have to be realistic about what we're able to achieve" with their wafer-thin majority.

As has become the case with recent spending measures, he had to turn to Democrats for the votes needed to pass the bill.