House rejects Senate cooling-off suggestion

JUNEAU -- Alaska's House majority has rejected a Senate offer to pass a state operating budget, adjourn this special session and take a cooling-off period before coming back later this year to try to hash out a final agreement on a capital budget.
Speaker Mike Chenault said Saturday that taking a break could cause problems, including missing summer construction season or delaying projects.
Chenault, R-Nikiski, also said the impasse would remain as long as the Senate insisted on including contingency language in its proposed capital budget that House Republicans consider inappropriate, if not an outright infringement on the governor's veto authority.
The Senate Finance Committee has proposed making a vast array of energy projects -- more than 100 in all, totaling about $400 million -- an as-is, all-or-nothing package. Senate leaders say this is intended to guard projects from indiscriminate vetoes and to implement energy projects statewide. They also believe they're on solid legal ground in doing so.
The Legislature's top attorney has said he believes a court could uphold the language. The attorney general has called it an unconstitutional reach.
Chenault said he worries the language in the latest version of the bill could result in legal action and potentially jeopardize popular programs, such as those related to weatherization and energy efficiency.
On Day 13 of the 30-day special session, the entrenchment seemed as solid as it had in the messy final days of the regular session.
While leaders on both sides said talks continued, they couldn't immediately identify a clear way out of the budget mess.
"I thought we had a shot at doing a time out," said Sen. Bert Stedman, the Republican co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee. He acknowledged a legislative break could have slowed down some capital projects but he said the transportation department still has many in the works.
"If we're not (leaving)," he said, "that's fine with me."
The House's GOP-led majority feels it's being held hostage by the Senate, which has in its possession three of the outstanding bills on the special session call sheet, dealing with coastal management, scholarships and the capital budget.
While Stedman's shown little interest in advancing a bill setting up a long-term funding source for one of Gov. Sean Parnell's pet projects, merit scholarships, there's been talk about setting aside a pot of money that could serve as an endowment.
There's also movement on coastal zone: Sen. Lyman Hoffman said he and Rep. Bob Herron were waiting to meet with Attorney General John J. Burns to go over a new draft and try to reach consensus. Burns was expected back in Juneau sometime Sunday, he said.
Coastal zone funding remains one of the last undecided issues in the operating budget now in conference committee. Saturday's conference committee meeting was canceled, as was the Senate Finance Committee, in which the coastal zone bill resides. Both are scheduled next for Monday.
When it comes to the capital budget, House leaders have called repeatedly on the Senate to follow the legislative process, send the House a bill and allow for any differences to be hashed out in a conference committee.
Stedman has been reluctant to do that. While it's not unusual for the House to have an agreement with the Senate not to cut from the Senate version of the bill, Chenault has said there's been no such agreement this year.
Some senators fear a backlash from Parnell for not acting on his bill to cut oil production taxes during the regular session. The bill stalled in the Senate, after narrowly passing in the House.
In late March, Parnell said he'd consider lack of action on the bill as consigning Alaska to a future of declining oil production.
Parnell has stated repeatedly that he won't abuse his veto authority and will fairly evaluate projects. He pointed to those statements as making clear his position in declining to meet with members of the Senate's bipartisan majority caucus who wanted more specifics.
To some senators, it's not clear, for example, just how he'll evaluate projects. They also have sought agreement on energy projects and assurances on Parnell's top-line spending level. Parnell had said he'd allow lawmakers to spend up to $2.8 billion but that was contingent upon passage of an oil tax bill.
Parnell's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, said Saturday that the governor wants lawmakers to finish the job they were sent to do.
Chenault believes Parnell has done all he can.
"Would I trust him? That's just me, probably," he said. "You know, in the Legislature, the only thing you have down here is your word. And once you ever go back on your word, then that creates a whole new realm of issues. "So, if that's what he says, then I will trust him," he said. And if Parnell goes back on what he said, "then I'll know how to deal with him in the future."