WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have reached agreement to fund federal agencies until Feb. 18, House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro said on Thursday, as they scramble to avoid a partial government shutdown this weekend.
“Agreement has been reached on a Continuing Resolution,” DeLauro said in a statement.
She said the measure would be filed in the House of Representatives, though it was not clear how soon the funding measure would reach the floor of the House.
Congress has until midnight on Friday to pass a measure that would continue funding federal government operations during the pandemic, amid concerns about a new rise in COVID-19 cases and the arrival of the Omicron variant in the United States.
If the House approved the new resolution, it would move on to the Senate before President Joe Biden could sign it into law.
But a group of hardline Republican conservatives are threatening to delay Senate consideration in protest against Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates, raising the possibility that the government could shut down over the weekend while the Senate moves toward eventual passage.
A partial government shutdown would create a political embarrassment for both parties, but especially for Biden’s Democrats, who narrowly control both chambers of Congress.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone and John Stonestreet)
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