In its dealmaking on a $1 trillion budget to avoid a federal government shutdown, the U.S. Congress is poised to commit the nation to spending more on energy waste in the coming year.

In the fine print of the 1,200-page bill approved late Thursday in the House, lawmakers voted to prohibit the U.S. Department of Energy from spending any money to enforce the law set to go into effect January 1 to phase out inefficient light bulbs. The measure was headed toward approval this weekend in the Senate.

House Republicans have been railing against the bulb phase-out for months, although their efforts to garner enough votes for an outright repeal failed repeatedly. But in the closed-door horse-trading to forge a new spending