This blog has been revised.

A deal has been struck and the stalemate is over: The FAA will not partially shut down Friday night, avoiding another costly and embarrassing episode caused by an impasse in Congress.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., dropped his objection this evening to a part of the highway bill tied to the FAA bill that requires states to spend 10 percent of funding from the Surface Transportation Program for “transportation enhancement activities” such as bike paths, walkways and scenic beautification.

The Senate likely will vote on the temporary FAA/highway bill tonight and it is likely to pass.

So what deal was stuck to get Coburn to come around and agree to the six-month highway bill extension?

Sources said that as part of the deal, the permanent highway authorization bill that will need to be passed once this temporary measure expires will carry a state opt-out for “enhancements,” as Coburn wanted.

The deal resolved a standoff between Coburn and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., involving items such as bike paths and white squirrels.

Before the deal, senators were told they might need to be in Washington for a weekend session if the FAA issue was not resolved in time to avoid a partial FAA shutdown after midnight Saturday morning.

“I hope he would reconsider,” Reid said of Coburn holding up the FAA bill over a portion of the highway bill that it is coupled with. “He says that he doesn’t like bike paths being part of the highway bill. Well, for most Americans, they are absolutely important. It’s good for purposes of allowing people to travel without burning all the fossil fuel on the highways.”

The “transportation enhancement activities” mandate Coburn objected to could help fund things like museums, pedestrian walkways, landscaping and scenic beautification – or, as Coburn pointed out Wednesday, things like a white squirrel observation deck and bike paths.

Reid said it was “unfair” for Coburn to hold up the FAA legislation when so many could be out of work if the FAA’s funding ran out.  He said he offered Coburn a vote on his amendment (which will likely fail). But Coburn only wanted it stuck in the bill, which is not, Reid reminded everyone, how the Senate works.

“We can’t do that,” Reid said. “That’s not what the House sent us. We can’t do that. He says ‘Well, separate the two bills.’ We have the bills from the House of Representatives. That’s the arrangement that we have made, and it’s a good arrangement to get these two vitally important pieces of legislation passed so that we can keep people, almost two million people, working.”

Similarly, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she has offered Coburn a chance to come before her committee to give his testimony about his objections to the bill – because the fight was about temporary funding, so the issue could be addressed in the long-term authorization. But Coburn has not been interested in that option, Democrats said.

“We can’t allow one member to rewrite a bill that is hugely important,” Boxer told reporters today. “We’re not going to let him tie us in knots. … No one member is that important. … And the message has to go out that, as far as this bill is concerned, stand down.”

Coburn has suggested splitting up the FAA bill and the highway bill. The FAA bill could pass before the Friday deadline and the highway bill, where the issues lie, could be debated until a deadline at the end of the month.

Democrats said that wouldn’t happen.

“The House is the one who coupled it; you ought to talk to [House] Speaker Boehner,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “If we were to decouple the bill Thursday at 3 p.m., by all the procedures we would miss the FAA deadline. … It wouldn’t work.”