Over protests by labor, farm groups and conservatives angered by the measure’s mountain of pork-barrel projects, the Senate approved the 1,182-page bill by a bipartisan 65-28 vote. The House passed it in December.
The vote, on the first major bill that Congress has approved this election-year, completes a measure that was due last Oct. 1, when the government’s budget year began.
Passage ended a prolonged fight in which the White House and GOP leaders stood by their business and gun-owner allies and refused to bend to Democrats and some Republicans in several fights.
Underscoring the bruising tone of those talks, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the episode taught him, “You do the best you can, and that compromise and negotiation are part of the legislative process.”
The bill provides increases for veterans’ health care, schools, biomedical research, highways and a drive to fight AIDS in poor African and Caribbean countries — though less than Democrats wanted.
It lets the administration go ahead with rules allowing companies to pay overtime to fewer white collar workers and letting media companies own more television stations. It would create the first federal school vouchers and shorten the period the government keeps records on gun purchasers from 90 days to 24 hours.
The bill permits companies to wait until September 2006, rather than this September, to put country of origin labels on meat and many other foods sold in U.S. stores. Despite the Christmas season discovery of a Washington state cow with mad cow disease, the administration rebuffed demands by Democrats and some cattle-state Republicans to strip the delaying language.
“This bill is a good consensus,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. “It’s good for the country, and it will fund agencies that need the money now.”
