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- Republicans and the White House struck a deal on a slimmer infrastructure deal compared to last month.
- The new agreement cut almost $30 billion, largely the result of reductions of transit funding and an infrastructure bank, two people familiar said.
- The deal could face a major test vote later on Wednesday evening.
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Republicans struck a fresh bipartisan infrastructure agreement with the White House, but it appears to be a little slimmer than the one brokered last month.
Three people familiar with the negotiations confirmed to Insider that the amount of new spending in the agreement was slashed $30 billion. It now amounts to $550 billion instead of $579 billion.
Two of the people said the deal will drop a proposed infrastructure bank aimed at leveraging public-private partnerships to fund new projects. They said it also reduced the amount of public transit funding. Sen. Mitt Romney told reporters on Wednesday this was the case.
One of the sources familiar said the infrastructure bank was dropped because Republican and Democratic negotiators were unable to resolve disputes about how much to pay workers on new construction projects. Democrats wanted to levy a higher wage floor than Republicans, who balked at imposing wage laws on private companies.
The agreement could face a major test vote in the evening, but its unclear enough Republicans will back it given their past demands to review the bill.
Sen. Jon Tester, one of the Democrats negotiating the deal, told reporters he was "confident" that a bill would be made public by the evening.
This story will be updated.