Government shutdown live updates: Focus turns to Senate after House OKs spending bill

Prior to the start of voting on the new funding bill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed approval of the removal of the debt limit provision.

"What needed to come out of the bill has come out of the bill, and now we’ve got to evaluate the four corners of what remains in the legislation," he said.

Pressed by ABC News’ Jay O’Brien if that means Democrats should vote for it, Jeffries waffled.

"That’s what we’re going to discuss," the New York congressman said. "But the reckless effort to remove the ability for the American people to have a real discussion in terms of fiscal responsibility by trying to jam a debt ceiling suspension into the legislation at the eleventh hour was not sustainable."

-ABC News' John Parkinson

The House has begun voting on a funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown. The vote needs a two-thirds majority to pass.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, sent a letter to congressional leaders questioning whether Elon Musk helped tank the first bipartisan government funding bill due to language it included about restricting U.S. investments in China.

"It is particularly disturbing that Musk may have sought to upend this critical negotiated agreement to remove a bipartisan provision regulating U.S. investments in China in order to protect his wallet and the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American workers, innovators, and businesses," DeLauro wrote in the letter Friday.

DeLauro also explained how an outbound investment provision would have kept new technologies in the United States and prevented wealthy investors from offshoring production and U.S. intellectual property to China.

Nearly a quarter of Tesla’s global revenue in 2023 drew from sales of Chinese-made vehicles from the Shanghai factory, she said.

"I urge congressional leadership to return to the deal and include this critical provision that ensures U.S. capabilities and capital do not fuel that of the Chinese Community Party," she said.

The new legislation is a short-term extension that funds government through March 14, 2025.

It does not address the debt limit in the legislative text, which was a key demand from President-elect Donald Trump.

It also includes $100 billion for disaster aid; $30 billion for farmers; and a one-year extension of the farm bill.

-ABC News' John Parkinson and Lauren Peller