Alaska lawmakers are drawing closer to an oil tax deal that could pass the House with support from the Republican-led majority and Democratic minority, with a vote on the legislation coming as soon as Friday.
House Minority Democrats have been meeting this week with members of a majority faction that includes Reps. Paul Seaton of Homer and Tammie Wilson of North Pole — two Republicans who normally span the party's ideological spectrum but who have formed an unlikely alliance on oil taxes.
In a phone interview early Thursday, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andy Josephson said his minority caucus was waiting to hear back from the Seaton-Wilson group on a compromise proposal — and by the afternoon, he sounded encouraged.
"There's been another exchange of offers and I'm feeling sanguine," Josephson said in a text message. "I feel like there's a real opportunity."
Neither Seaton nor Wilson responded to requests for comment.
The negotiations Thursday occurred out of public view, as the House Rules Committee publicly debated, then passed a new version of House Bill 247 — the oil tax legislation originally offered by Gov. Bill Walker, but then heavily amended by House committees and on the House floor.
After failing to yield majority support on the floor last month, the bill was returned to the rules committee.
The committee includes two Republican members of the House majority's leadership, Rep. Craig Johnson of Anchorage and House Speaker Mike Chenault of Nikiski, as well as one of their closest allies, Rep. Kurt Olson, R-Soldotna.
The bill that passed committee Thursday with the support of Johnson, Olson and Chenault offers more gradual and narrower changes to the state's oil tax regime than those favored by the House majority's Seaton-Wilson faction.
Any agreement between that faction and minority Democrats would likely sidestep the rules committee's version of HB 247 and instead pursue more aggressive changes.
Chenault and Johnson haven't said how they'd respond to such a plan, and neither returned calls Thursday.
It's rare for majority members to break with their leadership and join with minority members to pass major legislation — but the House's divisive fight over oil taxes has pitted members of the Republican-led majority against each other, as well as against the Democratic minority.
Lawmakers are trying to decide how sharply to scale back a cash subsidy program for small oil and gas companies budgeted at $500 million this year and projected to be $775 million next year, and they're also considering tax increases and smaller deductions for big North Slope oil producers.
For the last month, the impasse has effectively ground to a halt the Legislature's progress on other bills.
If lawmakers reach a deal on HB 247, they still face equally vexing votes on a sharply reduced state budget and a proposal from Walker to restructure the Permanent Fund to help pay for state government — all of which are measures aimed at reducing the state's $4 billion budget deficit.
Meanwhile, the Legislature faces a Wednesday deadline to finish its work — a 121-day cutoff set by the Alaska Constitution, which is already 31 days beyond the deadline set in a 2006 voters' initiative.
Lawmakers can extend their session for 10 days beyond Wednesday, but that takes a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate. Otherwise, the Legislature will have to take up any outstanding business in a special session.
In spite of the work remaining and the dwindling time in which to do it, Josephson wasn't the only lawmaker who sounded optimistic Thursday.
Another was Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks, who said his "gut read" is that it's possible the Legislature could finish by Wednesday.
"If we don't, we'll be close," Bishop said in a phone interview.
"I came into the building this morning and I just sensed an air of optimism," he said. "The way people are talking and people are moving and the discussions are going, I think we can reach agreements and get out of here."
Lawmakers took a few other steps Thursday toward adjournment, in addition to their work on oil taxes.
The Senate Finance Committee sent its proposed capital budget to the floor for debate, while a joint House-Senate budget committee decided to revoke money the Legislature had set aside for its Anchorage office building to pay for a lease that was invalidated in March by Superior Court Judge Patrick McKay.
The Senate Finance Committee also scheduled a hearing on oil taxes for Friday morning. Members are expected to be briefed on the legislation that passed the House Rules Committee on Thursday.