(Updates with vote, details) By Donna Smith WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday overwhelmingly approved legislation that extends popular tax breaks, opens up the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and gas drilling and cancels a scheduled pay cut for doctors who treat the elderly under Medicare. The House voted 367-45 for the legislation, one of the few remaining bills the Republican-led Congress hopes send to President George W. Bush before adjourning. House members were expected to quickly take up a companion trade bill that will be joined with the tax measure and sent to the Senate. The bill, which will cost the federal treasury about $40 billion over five years, extends tax breaks for research and development and other popular causes, cancels a Medicare pay cut for doctors next year and opens some 8.3 million acres (3.4 million hectares) in the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida to new oil and gas drilling. It also redistributes billions of dollars in federal royalties to four nearby Gulf Coast states. Democrats are slated to take control when the new Congress is seated in January and incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, said the tax bill was long overdue. The bill also extends popular tax breaks for education, alternate energy sources, employment opportunities for people on welfare and a deduction for state and local sales taxes. "Passage of this bill is necessary, but by no means comprehensive," Rangel said in a statement. "I welcome the opportunity to work with my colleagues in the next Congress to revisit the issues."
