JUNEAU -- Alaska's Republican-controlled Legislature on Tuesday raised the stakes of its natural gas pipeline poker game with Gov. Bill Walker when the Senate passed a bill restricting the governor's ability to control a state project that would run from the North Slope to Cook Inlet.
The 13-7 vote came after a string of meetings between the governor and legislative leaders that failed to produce a compromise over a bill that Walker has called "un-Alaskan." He has repeatedly threatened to veto it, and he affirmed that position Tuesday through a spokeswoman.
It's unclear whether the Legislature will be able to override the veto, but the final count showed a fracture in Republican support for the bill. Two members of their Senate coalition, Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, and Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, voted against the measure.
Based on two votes this month in the House and Senate, the bill's sponsor, House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, is still two legislators short of the two-thirds needed for an override. But he still expressed confidence in a news conference after the Senate vote.
"Do we have a little work to do? Yeah," he said. "It's a high hurdle -- it should be a high hurdle. But we're fairly comfortable with the numbers that we have right now."
Chenault introduced his bill March 2. It passed the House in three weeks, then speeded through the Senate over the course of eight days. Democrats said Tuesday that their counterparts in the Senate hadn't given the measure enough scrutiny.
Chenault's bill came after Walker announced plans in February to boost the size of the state-controlled pipeline to make it more like a separate, larger project that Alaska is simultaneously pursuing with three oil producers and a pipeline company.
If either is ever built, each project would be designed to provide gas for Alaska communities and to sell to Asian markets, if Walker gets his way.
Walker says existing plans for the smaller state-controlled pipeline, known as ASAP, make it too small to be economical. He wants the state to pursue a larger project as a backup to its other pipeline plan with the oil producers, known as AKLNG.
Chenault's bill would temporarily bar a state corporation from carrying out Walker's agenda. He and other top Republicans initially argued that increasing the size of the ASAP project would compete with the plans for AKLNG -- and potentially threaten the state's collaboration with the oil producers.
But in Tuesday's news conference, Chenault and Senate President Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, were more focused on state finances. They objected to what they characterized as a bid by Walker to access a $180 million pool of money that's already been set aside for work on the smaller ASAP project.
"He has the ability to spend $180 million on a backup plan that none of us know anything about," Meyer said.
Meyer and Chenault said they'd offered Walker the chance to send a team to Houston to review plans for the AKLNG project and its confidential details -- but only if he'd promise to come back to the Legislature to get permission to proceed with his alternative. In return, they would have stopped pushing Chenault's bill forward.
In their negotiations, Meyer said, "we were pretty close."
"And then things kind of broke down when the governor said that he doesn't want his hands tied," he added, referring to the requirement that Walker return to the Legislature for permission to access the $180 million and to proceed with his plans. "He says he needs total flexibility when dealing with the oil companies."
Walker initially described his idea for ASAP in an opinion piece in February. After complaints from legislators about a lack of specifics, Walker released more information on Friday in a two-page letter to Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, who chairs the Senate Resources Committee.
But there still appear to be some questions about Walker's plans, particularly with regard to who would build and pay for the liquefaction plant that would be required at the end of the larger ASAP project, said Larry Persily, an adviser to Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Mike Navarre on oil and gas issues.
"The Legislature has the power of appropriation, and it's understandable that they'd like to know: If the money's not going to be spent as they originally intended, how's it going to be spent?" Persily said in a phone interview. "This is not a low-cost insurance policy. It's a very expensive insurance policy to some, and to others it's a very expensive competing project."
Meyer and Chenault held meetings with Walker on Sunday night, twice Monday, then again Tuesday morning before the Senate's vote. Proceedings in both the House and Senate were delayed for meetings of both chambers' Republican-dominated majority caucuses.
Walker has 15 days -- not including Sundays -- to veto the bill, and it won't arrive at his desk until after a potential reconsideration vote Wednesday.
Walker could wait until close to the end of the legislative session, currently scheduled for April 19, to issue a veto. Further delay in sending him the bill could allow him to veto it after the session ends, in which case legislative leaders would have to call a special session if they wanted a quick vote on an override.
It takes 40 of the 60 members in a combined vote of the House and Senate to override the governor.
The measure passed in the House with 24 votes, though one member of the Republican majority caucus was absent. In the Senate, it got 13 votes, putting the combined total two shy of the 40 members required.
Meyer said there had been "arm-twisting" on both sides, referring to efforts by the Walker administration to convince legislators to vote against the bill. And Chenault said the legislative leaders are still "open to negotiations."
A spokeswoman for Walker, Grace Jang, said the governor was unavailable for comment Tuesday, and she didn't immediately respond to questions about when the governor would veto the bill and whether he plans to keep negotiating.