Under the agreement, the commission will be charged with studying and making recommendations for dealing with the U.S. deficit, and will focus on the tax code and entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The commission will draft their set of recommendations by the end of the year which will then be sent to Congress sometime after the November elections. Congressional leaders agreed they will act quickly on the recommendations upon receiving them.

The outcome of talks between White House, Senate and the House of Representatives on this issue is that President Barack Obama will issue an executive order to create the commission. According to the agreement, there will be 18 appointed members of the commission: 12 lawmakers—six Democrats and six Republicans, and six Presidential appointees, only four of whom could be Democrats. Fourteen commission members would have to approve the recommendations before they could be presented to Congress.

Also part of the agreement: Congress will enact new “pay-go” legislation which requires any new entitlement spending or tax cuts to be offset with future savings or revenues.

One key sticking point is how the commission’s recommendations are addressed by Congress. Conrad favors a required up or down vote on the commission’s recommendations in-full, while the White House and some others are wary of such strict language. Some lawmakers see this as infringing on Congressional powers.

Although Conrad previously threatened to oppose the overall legislation that would raise the debt ceiling absent such a commission, he has made positive comments about the agreement and has plans to review the agreement today with the group of Senators he’d been working with previously. The executive order will serve as a back-stop to the commission if the Senate doesn’t include proscriptive language in the bill calling for the creation of such a commission—which many expect will be the case—as they debate the bill today.