The life of foreign spying tools set to expire in a few weeks could be briefly extended until April 19 after congressional leaders inserted a short-term renewal into the annual defense policy bill.

The decision to attach a temporary renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to the massive policy blueprint comes after a week of behind-the-scenes negotiations that held up the final defense measure’s public release.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) and Jim Himes (CT), the panel’s top Democrat, confirmed the renewal was attached to the defense legislation during a roundtable discussion Wednesday afternoon with reporters on Capitol Hill.

By punting to mid-April, lawmakers would give themselves more time to renew the statute — which allows the National Security Agency to collect the electronic communications of foreign intelligence targets — that is set to expire at the end of the year. The statute has come under fire because data on an unknown number of Americans gets siphoned up in the process.