UPDATED: Senate passes CR; sends to Obama for signature

 Editor's note: This story has been updated with late-breaking news.

Only hours after the House approved a 2012 spending bill that would keep the government functioning through Dec. 16, the Senate voted 70-30 to pass the measure that will avert a possible shutdown. The bill now goes to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

The House Appropriations Committee Nov. 14 proposed the spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown. It would give the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development $182 billion in continued funding. The bill is being called a "mini-bus," a play on the usual omnibus bills that provide full budgets.

The mini-bus will keep the operations of these departments running until Dec. 16, 2011, or until Congress passes the remaining nine fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers said in a statement.

“The legislation introduced today represents a bipartisan compromise that will prevent a potential government shutdown, support important programs and services that the American people rely on, and make hard but necessary cuts to help rein in the nation’s deficit,” he said.

In the wake of partisan disagreement in Congress that brought the nation to the brink of a government shutdown several times this year, Obama signed the current legislation to keep the federal operations running on Oct. 4, The latest threat seemed to generate little interest or fear compared to earlier deadlines.