(NewsDakota.com/NAFB)- Senate appropriators unanimously approved a bill to fund the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration through fiscal year 2024. That level of consensus stands in stark contrast to the deep partisan divides on display during the House’s markup of their agriculture and FDA spending bill last week.

The Senate spending bill, which the panel approved 28-0 after just over an hour of discussion, would fund the agencies at $25.993 billion, more than $8 billion above the funding level in the Republican-led House bill. That House spending proposal drew intense pushback from Democrats on the Appropriations Committee over the course of a more than eight-hour markup on June 14. That session ended very abruptly after a particularly heated exchange between Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and committee chair Kay Granger (R-Texas).

New Mexico Democrat Martin Heinrich, chair of the subcommittee, lauded the bipartisan collaborative nature of the Senate’s spending bill.