$447 billon spending bill clears Senate hurdle

The U.S. Capitol building is seen before the start of President Barack Obama's primetime address to a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A $447 billion bill that would fund dozens of U.S. government agencies through September cleared a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate Saturday and appeared to be headed for passage.

The Senate vote, 60 to 34, cleared the way for senators to give the measure final congressional passage Sunday. The House of Representatives passed the measure Thursday with no Republicans voting for it.

The Democratic-controlled Congress must pass the bill and President Barack Obama must sign it by December 18 or extend a temporary measure to keep the federal government running.

The measure would boost spending for building high-speed rail and beefing up oversight of financial markets.

It also would boost lending programs for small businesses, which the Obama administration has identified as a way to bring down the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate.

Needle-exchange programs -- intended to ensure that diseases such as AIDS are not spread by infected needles shared by injection drug users -- would have an easier time getting federal funding under the measure. Abstinence-only sex-education programs for schoolchildren would get less money.

The measure would fund numerous government agencies through the rest of the 2010 fiscal year, which ends next September 30. Fiscal 2010 began on October 1, but Congress has not passed spending bills for the year. In fact, Congress has not passed spending bills on time since 1994.

Lawmakers next week are expected to take up the largest spending bill of all -- a $600 billion-plus measure that funds the Pentagon, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Deborah Charles; Editing by Will Dunham)