Juneau -- Good morning. This is Speaker of the House Brian Porter. Sometimes we in the house majority marvel at the coincidences of political life.

For instance: just last week we told the Governor's office that a number of us in the house would be meeting over the weekend to discuss a new subsistence proposal. Monday, the Governor held a press conference to announce that he was filing a subsistence proposal. As I said: the coincidences political life are astounding.

As to the governor's proposal, it is a 30-word constitutional amendment. However, 29 of those 30 words are identical to the words in his last proposal which did not have the support necessary to pass the legislature and has not had that support for at least two regular session attempts and the same number of special sessions. The word "shall" has been changed to "may" in the governor's proposal. But it looks like there either shall not or may not be the votes this year, either.

I do believe, however, that the proposal house members discussed over the weekend may have a better chance of getting the necessary votes. We are hopeful that we will be able to present a final consensus to our majority caucus and the other house members over the next week. It is our hope to be able to introduce a constitutional amendment and revised statutes within a week or ten days. As this process unfolds, I would ask everyone to remember that no matter our individual preferences on wording, if a proposed constitutional amendment doesn't get the required two-thirds of the vote in the House and in the Senate, it will be of no use in our attempt to keep control of Alaska's fish and game management.

The constitutional amendment and subsistence statutes we will be discussing have been written in good faith to support the intention of ANILCA. If the secretary of the interior remains inflexible as to his take that "rural preference" is an absolute, this proposal could still, arguably, meet that requirement.

Anything, of course, is possible, but, at this point, I think it highly unlikely that we would be able to move this proposal through the entire legislature before the end-of-session. Unfortunately, the massive budget problems the state faces and the merger of BP and ARCO, the state's two major oil producers, have severely impacted our ability to deal with subsistence in a more timely fashion. Consequently, if that is the case, we will at least have something to consider during a special session, if one is called.

This is Speaker of the House Brian Porter. Thanks for listening.