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The Senate approved ANWR drilling language on a budget reconciliation bill earlier this year. The House removed the provision from its version of the bill to gain essential support from about 20 dissident House Republicans.

A House-Senate conference committee must write a compromise bill. As pre-conference negotiations have progressed, the dissident group has held ranks, forcing House leaders to oppose ANWR drilling in the interest of passing the overall budget-cutting bill.

Stevens is looking for ways to keep both ANWR and the budget reconciliation bill moving. He has spoken in recent days about attaching ANWR drilling language to the annual defense appropriations bill instead.

Both houses of Congress have passed separate versions of a defense bill and are working in a conference committee on a final version. They are expected to add more money for rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

Stevens told reporters Wednesday that it would be hard for senators to vote against Katrina funding.

The budget reconciliation bill, unlike most other legislation, is exempt from filibuster under Senate rules.

Several Democratic senators have vowed to filibuster any standard bill that carries ANWR-drilling language. The defense spending bill would be subject to such a filibuster.

Stopping a filibuster would require 60 votes, which drilling supporters have not been able to muster in the past.

Placing ANWR on a bill that contains both hurricane and wartime defense spending would be a "cynical ploy" to overcome the filibuster obstacle, said Brian Moore, legislative director of the Alaska Wilderness League.

"It's hard to imagine a senator, especially a senator as senior as Sen. Stevens, jeopardizing the funding of our troops who are risking their lives every day at war in Iraq in Afghanistan by inserting this language that has proven to be a nonstarter," Moore said.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has threatened in the past to filibuster any ANWR drilling legislation.