The vote on Capitol Hill saves the program, which gives car buyers between $3,500 and $4,500 to trade in their older cars, trucks and SUVs for newer, more fuel-efficient ones. The old cars have to be destroyed.

The program, officially called "CARS," was originally slipped into a war funding bill and given $1 billion to last from the summer into November. But it was so popular with car buyers that it was exhausted in two weeks.

The bill to save the clunkers program withstood six amendments on a variety of issues. Any of them would have killed the program for the summer. The House had passed the emergency refill before its members left town last week.