An aide delivers the Senate’s first budget in four years, as climate scientists rejoice over the prospects of falling surface temperatures due to rapid cooling in the netherworld.

At daybreak Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed its first annual budget in four years, a move scientists say could actually reverse the global warming trend if predictions about subterranean freezing come to pass.

“You’ve heard the forecasts about when the Senate would pass a budget,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Well, it happened. So as the folks in the netherworld bundle up, those of us who currently dwell topside and were concerned about the rise of the oceans can heave a sigh of relief.”

Climate scientists say that even a thin layer of ice on the surface of the river Styx in the underworld could reduce the Earth’s core temperature enough to counteract glacial melting on the surface.

While this comes as welcome news to those frightened by the prospects of global warming, an expert from the porcine research facility at the University of Idaho warned that passage of a budget in the Senate can spawn a plague of avian hogs, whose airborne antics could have unpredictable consequences for the environment.