The US House of Representatives has made its bid to avoid a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution to fund agencies until March 18. The bill keeps most science agencies funded at levels similar to their 2010 budgets and largely avoids implementing major cuts. The legislation still has to pass the Senate, but Senate majority leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada) said today he expected senators to take up the bill and vote within 48 hours.

The government is currently supported by a short-term continuing resolution that freezes budgets at 2010 levels and that expires Friday, March 4th, triggering a shutdown if the Senate does not act.

The bill, introduced by Congressman Hal Rogers (Republican, Kentucky, pictured) and passed today by the House cuts $4 billion from US President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget, more than half by eliminating earmarks and the rest by cutting programs that are discontinued in the fiscal year 2012 budget request. The earmark cuts include $41 million managed through Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security and $77 million in earmarks managed by the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy.

The bill avoids slashes to the budgets of the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other science agencies proposed by House Republicans on February 11 and passed on Feb 19. That bill was crafted to achieve a cut of $61 billion in non-discretionary spending, House Republicans said. Democrats had slammed the cut as irresponsible and it stalled without passing the Senate, but Republicans who won their seat in the Autumn 2011 elections have argued they have an mandate to reduce spending.

In the House floor debate today, legislators from both sides acknowledged that funding the government under a series of short-term bills was extremely disruptive, but less so than the shutdown that will result if Congress cannot agree on something by Friday.