State Senate passes $2.8 billion capital budget bill CONFLICT: However, differences remain between it and the House version.

JUNEAU -- The Alaska Senate passed a $2.8 billion capital budget bill Tuesday night, a significant development as the special session enters its final week.
The 13-3 vote came hours after the Senate Finance Committee advanced the bill, something the panel refused to do for nearly a month without agreement with the House on the bill's size and structure.
No such agreement was reached, with many members of the House's GOP-led majority opposed to language tying energy projects together.
Committee co-chair Bert Stedman said moving a bill forward in good faith, with the option of taking it to a conference committee, seemed the best alternative with the 30-day session set to end May 17.
The still unanswered question, though, is: How messy will things get in the end?
Senate and House committees have unveiled substantially similar versions of the capital budget. While House Finance Committee co-chair Bill Stoltze said his intent was to work from whatever bill the Senate sent over, the proposal his committee released revealed some glaring differences with the Senate's -- and a glimpse at the leaning of the GOP-led House.
For example, the House version included $200 million for development of an instate natural gas pipeline project, a priority for Speaker Mike Chenault but which Stedman considers premature.
The Senate's version retains poison pill language making dozens of energy projects an as-is, all-or-nothing deal. While the language is softer than in earlier versions, it's still seen as a nonstarter by many in the House who consider such language inappropriate, if not unconstitutional.
With the special session scheduled to end soon, Stedman said lawmakers faced three options: staying another 30 days; running the clock of this special session to the end and winding up with what he called a "dump and run" of a capital bill; or moving forward "in good faith" and working through a conference committee if necessary.
Chenault said he's not sure whether the bill will go to conference. He said he thinks people are tired of fighting over the language issue.
Politically speaking, the Senate might not need it. If the language goes, the pressure and attention shift to Parnell, with any veto he might make -- particularly on energy projects -- apt to come under scrutiny or be subject to second-guessing. The capital budget and coastal zone are two of the three bills outstanding on the special session call.