Just hours before it ended, the Republican-led 109th Congress sent US President George W. Bush legislation early on Saturday to normalise trade with former enemy Vietnam, renew popular tax cuts and open the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and gas drilling.
The package was among a stack of bills the Senate and House of Representatives passed as Democrats, victorious in last month's elections, prepared to take control of the new 110th Congress set to convene on January 4.
Democrats vow to get off to a quick start by voting next month on legislation to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, cut the cost of health care and education, and step up calls for a new strategy in the Iraq war.
"We must end the policies that have divided this nation and come together on a new way forward," Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas said in delivering his party's weekly Saturday radio address.
Among the legislation passed by the departing Congress during a marathon session that stretched from early Friday to around 4:40 am (0940 GMT) on Saturday was a bill to help clear the way for nuclear-armed India to buy US nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years. Just beating a Friday midnight deadline, Congress also approved a stop-gap funding bill to keep the government running into next year.
The bill was needed because Republicans left behind nine of 11 spending bills that finance various government programs for the new Democratic-led Congress to finish. Democratic Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the next chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, called the stop-gap bill "a blatant admission of abject failure by the most useless Congress in modern times."
Democrats won control of the House and Senate, accusing Republicans of heading a "do-nothing Congress" and creating "a culture of corruption" marked by influence-peddling scandals. The 109th Congress has been criticised for short work weeks as well as failing to approve a number of major legislative efforts, such as ones to revamp immigration laws and the Social Security retirement program.
On the final full day, a House ethics panel issued a report concluding top Republicans were negligent in failing to protect young interns from unwanted advances by former Rep. Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who resigned in an Internet sex scandal shortly before the November 7 elections.
But the bipartisan panel said it found no violation of House ethics rules and meted out no punishment other than admonishing those it said should have done more. On the other side of the US Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is retiring from Congress, hailed fellow Republicans for their work in the final hours. "Just when everyone bet against us, Republicans put together a broad package of energy, tax, trade and health care measures," Frist said.
The bill would set aside Cold War restrictions on trade with Vietnam and clear the way for US farmers, bankers and other businesses to share in the market-opening benefits of Hanoi's entry into the World Trade Organisation next month.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, failed in an attempt to kill the tax portion of the bill, complaining about a $40 billion five-year price tag.
The package would extend tax breaks for research and development, education, state and local sales taxes and other popular causes. "You must have to ask yourself how we as a party got to this point when we have a leadership that is going to ram down our throats of our party the biggest budget buster in the history of this Congress, under Republican leadership," Gregg said.
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