Durbin unsure of deal's status

Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on the Senate floor Friday night that Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have managed to work out a disagreement about whether a budget for 2011 will include a rider that would defund women's health organizations across the country. But after leaving the floor, Durbin backed away from that assertion.

"I understand that has been worked out now the Speaker and that he has considered a different approach now, thank goodness," said Durbin. 

Durbin added that all of Friday had been wasted "going back and forth" between the parties.

Durbin later qualified his statement. He told reporters that negotiators had mulled the possibility of separating the Planned Parenthood rider. He said he did not know whether House Republicans would accept the compromise.

“We’re hoping,” he said. “[There’s] a procedural way to deal with that.” 

Last year, $75 million of Title X funding went to Planned Parenthood affiliates, which Republicans object to and attempted or are attempting to remove from the fiscal year 2011 budget. Planned Parenthood provides abortion services but can't use federal money for them. Republicans argue there's no real way to segregate the private dollars dedicated to abortion services and the federal dollars backing other areas of care.

That disagreement was major stumbling block in negotiations for most of Thursday and Friday.

If a deal to fund the government is not struck before midnight Friday, the government will shut down. House Republicans and Senate Democrats remain in negotiations.