Congressional leaders have struck a bipartisan deal to push the government funding deadline to March 14 and deliver more than $100 billion in emergency aid for disaster relief, House Republican leaders told their conference Tuesday morning.

The year-end package, which will be the last major legislation Congress clears this year, is expected to include a bill to restrict U.S. investment in China, an extension of expiring health programs, a one-year extension of the farm bill and $10 billion in economic assistance to farmers. The bill will also OK year-round and permanent E15 ethanol sales nationwide, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

Speaker Mike Johnson said text of the bill could be released Tuesday, and he is not promising to allow lawmakers a full 72 hours to review the measure ahead of passage, according to two people who attended the closed-door meeting.

If the House passes the package toward the end of the week, it will land in the Senate just ahead of the Friday night government shutdown deadline. On that side of the Capitol, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said negotiations are still ongoing.

“Obviously we’re getting closer to the Dec. 20 deadline, so time is of the essence for Republicans to reach an agreement with us that we can act on quickly,” he said Tuesday morning.

While a brief funding lapse is still possible, an agreement to fast-track final passage in the Senate is likely since lawmakers are eager to leave town for the holidays.

The inclusion of a policy that would approve increased ethanol sales is a major win for Republicans in corn states, and a large group of GOP senators strongly backed the move, helping Midwest Republicans in the House push the measure into the package. But many House conservatives, who had urged Johnson to forgo the policy and overwhelmingly oppose ethanol subsidies, are livid about its inclusion.

Jordain Carney and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is heading today to Albany, New York, while several of his top deputies are due in Washington, all seeking to advance Adams’ state and federal priorities amid the political backlash of his criminal indictment.

The outreach in the state and nation’s capitals, confirmed to POLITICO by a spokesperson for Adams, comes as the Democratic mayor warms to the GOP president-elect.

And it comes a day after the city’s Campaign Finance Board voted to deny Adams $4.5 million in public funds, his closest aide disclosed she expects to be indicted on alleged corruption charges and Donald Trump said he would consider pardoning the mayor in his bribery case.

Today, Adams’ deputy mayor, chief of staff and other envoys are slated to meet with bipartisan members of the New York congressional delegation to advocate for City Hall’s 2025 agenda, which includes removing the SALT cap, health care, social services and infrastructure funding and immigration reform.

Adams himself is set to meet with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on his support for a proposal to eliminate income tax for hundreds of thousands of working-class New Yorkers.

 🗓️ What we’re watching

• Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has less than four days to get his caucus to agree on a short-term spending bill. The fight highlights the challenges he will face trying to pass President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda with a razor-thin majority next year. 
• Tech leaders are lining up to give to Trump’s inauguration fund, evidence of the the already-apparent differences from his first term. “This term, everybody wants to be my friend,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking Trump to come up with conflict-of-interest rules for Elon Musk, who will run the president-elect’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday morning.  
• Some public health leaders are quietly optimistic about Trump’s pick for HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While they are fearful of his conspiracies around vaccines, they see promise in some of his plans to address chronic disease.

👀 What’s Trump up to?

• Trump told reporters Monday that he plans on meeting with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos later this week. It comes after a parade of tech executives have met with Trump in the last week.

🚨What’s up with the nominees?

• Trump said Monday that RFK Jr. wouldn’t be “radical” in his health policies and that he would have an “open mind.” Meanwhile, opponents of RFK Jr.’s nomination are buying tens of thousands of dollars in ads across the states of key Republican senators that the secretary-designate plans meet with this week.

📝ICYMI: Here are the latest administration picks 

• Trump announced picks for five ambassador positions: George Glass as ambassador to Japan; Leah Francis Campos as ambassador to the Dominican Republic; Arthur Graham Fisher as ambassador to Austria; Stacey Feinberg as ambassador to Luxembourg and Lou Rinaldi to be ambassador to Uruguay.

House Agriculture ranking member David Scott has dropped out of the race to maintain his post next year, according to four people with knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to discuss the decision.

Scott (D-Ga.) lost a key Steering panel vote Monday on the first ballot. The ranking member has long faced questions about his ability to lead the panel amid health concerns.

Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) is in a strong position to take the top Democratic spot on the committee after receiving 34 votes from the steering panel. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who was also in the running for the ranking member post, came in second with 22 votes. Scott received five votes.

The House Democratic caucus will meet in full on Tuesday to hold a vote finalizing who will lead Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee and other contested ranking member races.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen a former investment bank president to be the next U.S. ambassador to Japan.

George Glass, who served as ambassador to Portugal in the first Trump administration, would replace Rahm Emanuel in Japan.

“As a former President of an Investment Bank, George will bring his business acumen to the Ambassador’s position,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday.

The president-elect also announced who he has chosen to nominate to serve as ambassadors to the Dominican Republic, Austria, Luxembourg and Uruguay.

For the Dominican Republic, Trump chose Leah Francis Campos, who was a CIA case officer before becoming senior adviser for the Western Hemisphere on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She’s also the sister of “Fox and Friends Weekend” anchor Rachel Campos-Duffy — the spouse of Sean Duffy, Trump’s pick to serve as secretary of transportation.

Trump said he would nominate Arthur Graham Fisher, president of Fisher Realty, as ambassador to Austria and Stacey Feinberg, president of investment firm 33 Capital, as ambassador to Luxembourg.

He said he had chosen Lou Rinaldi, a friend and businessperson, to be ambassador to Uruguay.

The president-elect noted that Rinaldi grew up in Uruguay and has “expertise and background” to advance U.S. interests and strengthen relations between the U.S. and Uruguay.

“Lou is a great golfer, and will be in a Country with some terrific courses,” he said.

House Democrats are poised to oust another senior panel leader after ailing Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), 79, lost a vote in the influential Steering panel Monday.

Scott lost the steering committee vote in the first round of voting Monday, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) won the vote outright on the first ballot. The result all but ensures Scott will lose his bid to stay on as the top Democrat on the Agriculture panel next year.

Craig, 52, is in a strong position to take the top Democratic spot on on the Agriculture Committee after receiving 34 votes from the steering panel. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), 72, who was also in the running for the ranking member position, came in second with 22 votes. Scott received 5 votes.

The full Democratic House caucus will vote Tuesday. Scott failed to garner the support of every Black Caucus member on the steering committee, according to two other people.

The formal move against Scott comes after years of pressure from rank-and-file Democrats, who complain he has not been an effective committee leader. It also reflects the larger effort among House Democrats to force out senior panel leaders ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power with a GOP trifecta next year.

Since 2021, Scott has defied private calls from fellow Democrats to step down from his committee role amid concerns about his health, lack of leadership and struggle to negotiate the $1.5 trillion farm bill. Those calls have built since the election, especially after Costa and Craig launched their own bids for the ranking member job.

Scott, who became the first Black chair of the Agriculture Committee in 2021, has long been protected by Democratic leaders and the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. But those alliances have crumbled, especially in the last few weeks.

As recently as last Wednesday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to support Scott when asked in a brief hallway interview about the Georgia Democrats’ health and whether he should be reelected to the role for the next Congress.

Scott has also been hemorrhaging support among the Black Caucus. Younger CBC members have long been more open to replacing Scott. But in a stunning shift, even some senior CBC members have recently and openly mulled the potential of backing one of Scott’s challengers.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel, said in a recent interview that he hadn’t made up his mind whether to stick behind Scott.

“But I do want someone who … can carry the Democratic message far and wide,” Thompson said. “We need the strongest voice.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz announced Monday that she is opting out from serving on committees next year and will boycott the House GOP conference meetings, a rare move given she also stated her intention to remain a Republican.

“I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing. I do not need to be involved in circuses,” Spartz wrote on X.

The decision to step down confused some Republicans, but others suspected the move had something to do with the House GOP Steering Committee not giving her a coveted post on the House Ways and Means Committee, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Spartz, who has had problems with retaining staff, said she’d prefer to “spend more of my time helping” the mission of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is meant to help cut government spending.

Some Republicans are happy about her decision to boycott the conference meetings, according to two people familiar with the situation, as some had privately complained about her speaking too much during the internal GOP meetings.

House Democrats have solidified the generational shake-up at the top of their committees, after significant behind-the-scenes influence from both current and former leaders of the caucus.

The caucus faced tough races for the Agriculture, Oversight and Natural Resources Committees. Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.) won the nod for the top party spot on Agriculture, beating incumbent Rep. David Scott (Ga.), who’d faced long-standing questions about his health, and Rep. Jim Costa (Calif.). Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.) won the Oversight recommendation over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.). And Rep. Jared Huffman (Calif.) earned the nod for the Natural Resources Committee against Rep. Melanie Stansbury (N.M.) after Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) stepped down.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) is also poised to take the top Democratic spot on the Judiciary Committee, though Steering will now take votes on uncontested panel spots on Tuesday.

It’s a huge amount of turnover for a caucus that typically favors seniority to pick its panel chiefs. But House Democratic leaders such as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had largely stood aside as lawmakers challenged powerful sitting committee heads, a sign many members took as a tacit endorsement of the effort to replace the old guard.

And former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, despite stepping down from leadership two years ago, put her thumb on the scale even more pointedly. She publicly backed fellow Californians Huffman and Costa, as well as Connolly on Oversight. Pelosi also made calls to lobby support for all three men, according to three people familiar with the conversations.

The full Democratic Caucus will vote on the recommendations Tuesday morning. Most of the votes are expected to be perfunctory approvals of the steering panel’s choices, though the caucus has the option to vote against the selections.

Rep. Gerry Connolly is poised to become the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee next year.

The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted to recommend him as the ranking member on the high-profile panel, according to two people familiar with the vote. The veteran investigator faced a stiff challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). The full caucus is set to vote on who will officially lead Democrats on the panel on Tuesday, and those votes typically align with the steering panel’s recommendations.

Current ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) set off the contested race after he announced his bid to become the top Judiciary Committee Democrat. Democrats are looking to use the Oversight Committee as a foil to President-elect Donald Trump’s administration in the next Congress.

Connolly had unsuccessfully run for the panel’s top job last Congress, losing to Raskin in both the steering and caucus elections. Since then, he worked to round up support from key corners of the Democratic Caucus and had a powerful ally in his corner: former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.