Most federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Transportation, will have their FY 2010 funding levels continued until Dec. 3. The Senate approved the measure, HR 3081, by a vote of 69-30 Wednesday evening. The House of Representatives followed suit early Thursday, passing the bill 228-194. Both chambers then adjourned until Nov. 15, two weeks after the Nov. 2 midterm elections.

The House and Senate will be in lame-duck session Nov. 15-19, break for Thanksgiving, and then return Nov. 29 for an undetermined period of time. Congress will have numerous issues to address during the lame duck including completing appropriations for Fiscal Year 2011 and passing a surface transportation reauthorization measure.

A continuing resolution supplying government funding for the first part of FY 2011 was made necessary by the fact that Congress has passed none of the 12 annual appropriations measures this year. (The House has passed two bills, including one for the departments of Transportation and Housing & Urban Development, while the Senate has not passed any spending bills for the new fiscal year.) The chambers have not even adopted a budget for FY 2011, which was supposed to have been completed back in April. The budget sets a total cap on discretionary spending.

Appropriations leaders said they plan to wrap all dozen bills for FY 2011 into an "omnibus" package after returning Nov. 15, rather than go through the time-consuming process of debating and voting on each measure on the floor in each chamber, then having a conference committee to reconcile differences.

The last surface transportation authorization law, known as "SAFETEA-LU," expired one year ago on Sept. 30, 2009. It has been temporarily extended five times; the current extension expires Dec. 31. Congress will need to consider either a long-term bill or further extend the program. However, if they fail to act by year's end, then the surface transportation programs would be shut down going into 2011.