Congress races against the clock – and the weather – to fund the government

The Senate has approved a stop-gap spending bill to fund the government through early March, sending the House where the measure is expected to come up within hours.

With some federal agencies, including those that oversee agriculture, transportation and veterans' services, set to run out of funding Friday night at midnight and a winter storm toward the nation's capitol, lawmakers are under pressure to finish their work and leave town. The new spending measure maintains a two-tier structure where some agencies would run out of money on March 1 and others would remain funded through March 8.

The measure is the latest in a series of short-term measures meant to buy lawmakers time to do the more arduous work of drafting and advancing the full suite of 12 annual government spending bills, which have so far been waylaid in large part because of internal disagreements among the wafer-thin House Republican majority.

Why Congress is relying on short-term funding measures

After weeks of insisting he would reject any stop-gap measures, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., agreed to give lawmakers more time to draft legislation to fund the government through the end of September, when the fiscal year ends.

Johnson has insisted the extension will give him time to pursue conservative policies in the longer-term spending bills.

"Because the completion deadlines are upon us, a short continuing resolution is required to complete what House Republicans are working hard to achieve: an end to governance by omnibus, meaningful policy wins, and better stewardship of American tax dollars," Johnson said in a statement this week.

But any spending bills will need bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled Senate and being signed into law by