(Bloomberg) — The Senate cleared a three-week funding bill on a 65 to 27 vote, averting a U.S. government shutdown that loomed after Feb. 18 and giving lawmakers more time to finish a full-year spending plan. 

The bill, which passed the House last week, goes to President Joe Biden for his signature well ahead of the deadline. 

The stopgap passed after the Senate defeated three amendments offered by Republicans. One would have prohibited funding for federal vaccine mandates, another would have blocked funding for schools with a vaccine mandate and the final one would have required future budget resolutions to balance.

On Thursday, Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy said a shutdown would have been “useless, senseless.” 

The short-term bill continues funding the government at fiscal 2021 levels with just a few exceptions. Those so-called anomalies include up to $1.6 billion for the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear submarine, a top Pentagon priority. The stopgap bill also includes $350 million to address drinking water contamination at the military’s Red Hill fuel storage facility in Hawaii, as well as funds for Interior Department cybersecurity. The bill also continues a temporary designation of fentanyl as a controlled substance.

The government has been running on temporary spending legislation since fiscal 2022 began on Oct. 1, and the latest stopgap bill passed in December is due to expire Friday. The new three-week bill has been passed in the hopes that Democrats and Republicans can agree on a full-year funding package soon. 

There are signs of hope for completing the full-year bill. Key Republicans and Democrats said last week they had agreed to broad “framework” for the funding package and the 12 subcommittees handling agency operating budgets have each been given tentative spending limits to work with.

Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, indicated Congress would enact a spending increase for defense that is equal to that going to social agencies, a key GOP goal. Democrats need Republicans to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the spending package in the Senate. 

Lawmakers have not released the outline for the bills publicly, however, and with the House away from Washington until Feb. 28, time is running out for a deal.  

“The framework was the result of weeks of careful negotiations,” Leahy said. “There is still much work to do.”

Leahy said domestic spending would be increased by the largest amount in four years under the framework.

Adding to the complications, the White House is preparing to ask for at least $30 billion in emergency funds to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, above the estimated $1.5 trillion limit for the regular spending package. Attaching a Covid supplemental bill to the omnibus package could delay it or result in another stopgap bill for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. 

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have said spending on the pandemic should come by re-purposing unused funds from last March’s Covid relief bill. 

A full-year spending package would unlock billions in transportation, energy and other funding from last year’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $197 billion from that $550 billion law cannot be released for use over 10 years unless annual appropriations bills are enacted.  

The package would also herald the return of earmarked spending designated by individual members for projects in their districts. Earmarks were prohibited by Congress a decade ago after a series of scandals and now come with greater disclosure requirements. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.