Sources in Washington are saying that a deal has been made between the Senate and the House on transportation reauthorization, the student loan bill and flood insurance legislation.

Those three items, word has it, will be packaged and voted on by the end of the week. The package still needed to be drafted last night and did not make the 12 am dealine, meaning that the house will have to waive the three day rule for reviewing legislation or wait to vote on the packaged bill on Saturday.

The bill, which includes transportation re-authorization, would maintain the funding for that item at current levels through to the end of 2014. The bill also extends federal student loan subsidies keeping the interest rate from doubling as it would have at the beginning of this next month. Those rates would have increased from 3.4 % to 6.8%. The Federal Flood Insurance Program legislation in the bill will undoubtedly have wording to increase premiums as well as a reduction of subsidies for vacation homes. This legislation on the Federal Flood insurance Program is needed after the Katrina disaster that flooded New Orleans and with it brought in a torrent of claims that pushed the program deep into the red.

In the highway bill language, demands for federal approval for the Keystone XL pipeline will struck from the bill, as will blockage of Government regulations for toxic ash that is producwed from coal fired plants. In return, the Republicans will win concessions, this being the curbing of environmental reviews for highway projects.

With this new package, the Student Loan interest increases will be done away with, at least postponed for six years for each student. While both sides didn’t want to go into the election cycle having to face 7.4 million angery young voters looking toward getting student loans in the next twelve months, the question of how to pay for the student loan legislation was a stickler.

The answer put out in this legislation would be to limit federal subsidies to 6 years on the loans instead of subsidizing until the borrowing student receives a degree, which at times can take many. many years. $5 billion would come from a change in calculations for companies setting aside monies for pension programs. Another $500 million would come from pegging the the fees that companies pay to federally insure their pensions, to the rate of inflation.

An agreement on the Highway Bill will keep jobs flowing as money is re-authorized for the nation’s highway, bridge and infrastructure projects that span the contry.