WASHINGTON — The House on Friday voted by unanimous consent to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until April 30, approving the short-term renewal in a post-midnight session. The extension now heads to the Senate, with the current authority set to expire the following Monday.

Earlier in the morning, GOP leaders pushed for either a five-year renewal or the 18-month renewal that President Trump had demanded, but both proposals failed to pass. A key procedural vote on the extension fell short due to Republican defections, causing the effort to collapse. A new proposal unveiled late Thursday would have extended the program for five years with revisions, departing from the clean 18-month renewal that Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson had previously supported.

"We were very close tonight," Johnson said after the votes. "We want to make sure that we have this very important tool for national security, but we also do it in a way that jealously guards constitutional rights," he said.

Democrats criticized the process used to approve the renewal late Thursday. Representative Jim McGovern questioned the process on the floor, saying: "Does anybody actually know what the hell is in this thing? Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?" Many members flipped through pages of the bill on the floor as votes began.

Trump and his allies lobbied throughout the week for a clean renewal. A group of Republicans traveled to the White House on Tuesday. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday that negotiations with the White House and some GOP members had continued late into the night. "We need to stick together," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Section 702 permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI, and other agencies to intercept the electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside the United States without a warrant. The agencies can incidentally collect communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets. Some of the nearly 350,000 targets whose communications are collected under the authority are in contact with Americans, and calls, texts, and emails of those Americans could be reviewed by the federal government.

For almost two decades, privacy-minded lawmakers from both parties have sought to reform the program to require specific court approval before federal law enforcement or intelligence agents can review an American's information. The intelligence community has argued that requiring court approval would inhibit the efficacy of the tool and endanger national security. U.S. officials say the authority is critical to disrupting terrorist plots, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage. Previous debates resulted in limited modifications that did not satisfy lawmakers seeking stronger privacy protections.

If the authority is allowed to lapse, intelligence collection could continue but would likely face lawsuits from technology and telecommunications companies compelled to provide communications to the government.