When President Bush returns from his Middle East trip, he is likely to confront two major legislative challenges from the Democratic Congress — bills he has repeatedly denounced but probably cannot block.

Congress on Thursday sent Bush a massive $289 billion five-year farm bill that reauthorizes crop subsidies, land conservation, food stamps, school lunch programs and renewable energy incentives.

A day earlier, it cleared for the lame-duck president a bill that would temporarily halt shipments of 70,000 barrels of oil per day to the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, keeping that oil available for refining into gasoline.

Bush has vowed to veto the farm bill and has harshly criticized the energy measure, although he stopped short of saying he would veto it.

A two-thirds majority of each chamber is needed to override a veto, and the House and Senate exceeded that threshold comfortably on both bills, making it unlikely Bush can nullify their work.

Lawmakers have been scrambling to address soaring gasoline prices. Even though they concede that halting shipments to the reserve would increase supplies and reduce gasoline prices by just pennies per gallon at best, they figure something is better than nothing as the summer driving season begins.

The farm bill was crafted to maximize its appeal to lawmakers from every type of constituency. Its core crop subsidy provisions draw strong support from farm-state members, while the conservation and nutrition sections appeal to urban and suburban lawmakers.