After a flurry of negotiations, the Senate on Thursday agreed to add $3 billion in emergency border security funding to the fiscal 2008 homeland security spending bill, drawing Congress closer to a confrontation with the president over the level of funding in the bill.

The amendment, offered by Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was adopted by 89-1.

The Senate was moving toward passage by late Thursday or Friday a $37.6 billion spending bill (HR 2638) that exceeds President Bush’s request by $2.3 billion and would provide $177 million more than the House-passed version. The White House on Wednesday threatened to veto the bill in its current form because of what it characterized as excessive spending.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, worked out an agreement that led to adoption of the Graham amendment.

Graham said the $3 billion in emergency spending would fund an additional 23,000 Border Patrol agents, 300 miles of vehicle barriers, 105 ground-based radar cameras in the desert and completion of the 700 miles of physical border fencing authorized by Congress last year .

Cornyn and Graham said Thursday that the overwhelming support for the amendment likely meant that the Senate had the votes to override a threatened presidential veto of the homeland security spending bill.

“All spending bills are not equal,” Cornyn said. “This is a designated emergency because it is an emergency.”