LAS VEGAS -- President Barack Obama has signed a short-term bill that avoids interest rate increases on new loans to millions of college students and maintains jobs on transportation projects across the nation.
Obama signed a one-week extension of the measure to give time for the full legislation, approved Friday by Congress, to reach his desk. The president is expected to sign the full law in the coming days.
The bill includes creating Interstate 11, a link between Las Vegas and Phoenix, although it does not set aside any federal money for the project.
"I'm also glad that the House approved legislation that will make Interstate 11 a reality," U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada said in a statement. "Connecting Las Vegas and Phoenix, the last remaining major metropolitan areas not linked by a modern highway, will boost our economy, create good-paying jobs in Nevada and make it easier for visitors to travel to the greatest tourist destination on earth."
Nevada and Arizona lawmakers have been pushing for I-11, saying that the highway would create a transportation corridor that allows for a smoother north-south flow.
The bill allows more than $100 billion to be spent on highway, mass transit and other transportation programs during the next two years. Those projects would have expired Saturday.
And it ends a standoff over student loans, maintaining interest rates of 3.4 percent for subsidized Stafford loans for undergraduates that would have doubled for new loans beginning on Sunday if Congress hadn't acted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
