Support is needed from two-thirds of the 60 legislators to go into special session. Leaders of both the House and Senate said Friday evening that they had polled their members and it looked like enough were on board to make it happen.
The special session is tentatively scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Monday in Juneau and could be over as quickly as one day.
The state's coastal management program will expire next Friday if nothing is done. It's fallen victim to political fights over local input versus resource development, and the inability of legislators to agree on a middle ground that gets enough votes.
Legislators failed to reach a compromise during the regular 90-day session or the monthlong special session that followed it.
Legislative leaders say they now have an agreement that should get enough votes to pass. But it remains to be seen if that's the case.
Even if the program is saved it's going to be in tatters. Coastal management officials have been in the process of shutting down the offices in Anchorage and Juneau. Staffers have been let go. All but nine of the 33 employees have new full-time jobs.
"It would be challenging for anyone to come in and restart the program at this point," said Kim Kruse, deputy director of the program.
Program supporters say it's needed for the state to influence federal decisions and give local communities input into oil and other development projects.
The state also stands to lose federal grant funds without having a coastal management program in place. The Great Land Trust, for example, has said it may lose a $1 million federal grant to help purchase of the Campbell Creek Estuary as a protected area in South Anchorage.
Rural legislators want to keep the coastal management program. But they also want it strengthened to provide more local oversight. The North Slope Borough and Arctic communities want a greater voice on offshore oil development in their areas .
Then-Gov. Frank Murkowski weakened the program in 2004 after complaints from industry groups that it was slowing projects. And the oil and mining industries are worried about the current efforts in the Legislature and what they will mean for projects. Much of the fight in the Legislature has been over how much emphasis "local knowledge" would be given in an advisory board to review coastal issues.
The House, which is more aligned with industry than the Senate, voted down a proposed deal in part because House members felt it gave too much weight to local knowledge. A compromise bill legislators expect to vote on during Monday's special session says local knowledge can be used as long as it's not found by a resource agency to be inconsistent with scientific data.
The last-ditch effort to save the program has alarmed the Alaska Miners Association, which was involved in an earlier attempt to craft a compromise. The trade group said it had concerns with the latest proposed deal and how the program will work now that it's been largely dismantled, with employees leaving, files archived and uncertainty over how it's going to be funded.
"If the program is now resurrected after more than two months of turmoil, without knowledgeable people, without files, and without adequate funding, the result would be an extended period of uncertainty and delay. This delay would be across all projects requiring a coastal consistency review," association director Steve Borrell wrote Friday to legislators and the governor.
Gov. Sean Parnell's office says he is staying out of it. "At this point, the administration is not engaged in any negotiations. The governor has said that if legislators call themselves back into session, he would work with them," Parnell spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said.
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