By Kristina Peterson 

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats released Monday a spending bill that would keep the government running through Dec. 11, but without farm-aid funds sought by the White House.

The bill could set up a clash with the GOP-controlled Senate, as partisan tension is running high after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he would move to swiftly fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death Friday of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The government's current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1.

"The Continuing Resolution introduced today will avert a catastrophic shutdown in the middle of the ongoing pandemic, wildfires and hurricanes, and keep government open until Dec. 11, when we plan to have bipartisan legislation to fund the government for this fiscal year," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Monday.

The absence of the farm aid, which typically enjoys bipartisan support, was expected to become a flashpoint in the GOP-controlled Senate. One possibility is that the Senate adds the farm aid onto the spending bill before sending the legislation back to the House, aides said. But such back-and-forth negotiations risk bringing Congress to the brink of a partial government shutdown if the dispute isn't resolved by next Thursday.

Last week, President Trump had criticized Democrats for pushing back on the farm aid in negotiations over the spending bill.

"Pelosi wants to take 30 Billion Dollars away from our great Farmers. Can't let that happen!" Mr. Trump said on Twitter.

The bill introduced by House Democrats on Monday excluded the $21 billion the White House requested for the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corp., or CCC, a Depression-era program designed to stabilize farm incomes. It permits borrowing as much as $30 billion from the Treasury to finance its activities.

Democrats said they had concerns over replenishing a program if that meant giving President Trump a blank check to use for political purposes after he announced more aid for farmers at a campaign rally in Wisconsin last week.

The CCC program helped finance the first round of coronavirus-related aid to farmers, although Congress included some funding to reimburse it in previous relief legislation passed in March. But aides said its resources were already being depleted even before Mr. Trump announced a second round of $13 billion in farm aid at Thursday night's rally.

Funding that second round could impede the program's ability to send out noncontroversial commodity support and conservation programs established by the farm bill, aides said. Once early October payments have been sent, the CCC program could be exhausted by November, the Farm Bureau estimated last week.

The House spending bill also left out an extension sought by Democrats of a program known as Pandemic-EBT. The program provides families of school-age children benefits to use to buy groceries, replacing the free or reduced-price meals they would have received at school. The Covid-relief program, which Congress authorized in March, is set to expire Sept. 30.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers had hoped to give the U.S. Census Bureau extra time to finish its count of the U.S. population and deliver that information to the president and Congress, but the spending bill didn't provide an extension.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 21, 2020 13:28 ET (17:28 GMT)