Final budget-cutting vote may be delayed until January

House and Senate Republican leaders were still struggling Wednesday to agree on a deficit reduction package approaching $45 billion, as House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is acting majority leader, told the Republican Conference the bill might not come up before Congress adjourns for the holidays.

Negotiators remain at loggerheads over language opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. GOP leaders appear to be casting about for a solution -- perhaps moving ANWR provisions to another vehicle such as the fiscal 2006 Defense appropriations bill or a separate reconciliation measure.

Speaking to reporters, Blunt did not commit to bringing up the reconciliation bill this week and was more frank in the closed Conference meeting. "Blunt made it clear it might not happen," said one lawmaker.

"We're still working, that's about all I can tell you," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, who responded, "Good question," when asked if the bill could be completed this week.

Blunt and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who is the lead Senate negotiator on the Defense spending bill, did not close the door on moving ANWR outside of reconciliation. "Reconciliation may or may not be the vehicle to get it done," Blunt said.

Moving ANWR to the Defense bill, which is expected to be the last legislation to move this year, is being revived as an option, Stevens said, even though he had previously rejected the idea.

"I would say reconciliation and Defense are the two prime targets," Stevens said, even though moving ANWR to the Defense bill could make that bill subject to a filibuster.

It also would run afoul of Senate rules barring extraneous provisions in appropriations bills. But Stevens, a former Appropriations Committee chairman, noted "the last bill always carries some non-germane things. Always."

The Defense spending bill also is the vehicle for avian flu and hurricane relief funds. "What's in play is probably the money for disasters," Stevens said.

Mississippi GOP Gov. Haley Barbour was blanketing the Capitol Wednesday urging support for the $35 billion Katrina aid package backed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., although it appeared likely to be scaled back in House-Senate negotiations.

Some also have floated the idea of amending the fiscal 2006 budget resolution to include another reconciliation bill for ANWR and perhaps a few other items to move early next year, although that could also run into procedural hurdles.

"There's a lot of machinations going on," said Senate Budget Chairman Gregg. "I don't sense that we can restructure this thing at this late date."

Gregg, who said he will chair the House-Senate conference on reconciliation, hinted that even his support might hinge on the House accepting the ANWR provision. Members of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, more concerned with an overall deficit reduction bill than with specific ANWR provisions, are continuing to press.

"We want to do the right thing and stay as long as it takes," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who chairs the RSC. "I believe we're at a moment of critical mass on public expectation. Many of us are concerned that as a new year of Congress begins with new priorities and a new budget being debated, it would be difficult to return to the budget debates of the fall of 2005."

Darren Goode contributed to this report.