Washington ? The Bush administration is floating a proposal to reduce the amount of land that would be opened for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, hoping to sway some senators to favor the drilling.

“It’s an option. It’s been out there for a while,” Interior Department spokesman Eric Ruff said Tuesday.

But even the administration appeared to be divided on the matter and Senate Democrats said the issue was not about how much land to open, but whether to allow oil development at all in the refuge in northeastern Alaska.

“It doesn’t matter whether its a smaller or a larger segment of land,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. “It’s a precious natural resource that needs to be protected.”

A number of Democrats have vowed to filibuster energy legislation that includes drilling in the Arctic refuge, and Republicans so far don’t have the 60 votes to break such a filibuster.

An Interior Department official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity, that one of several options under consideration is proposing drilling in roughly a third of the coastal area previously being considered, or about 500,000 acres.

The House already has passed a bill that would open up the refuge’s coastal plain, an area of 1.5 million acres where the oil and gas is believed to be located.

“There are a number of discussions taking place right now but we are not locked into any one position,” Ruff said. “We’re looking at ways we can win.”

But it was unclear Tuesday how seriously the Bush administration is willing to push the proposal to limit the drilling area to a third of the coastal plain, or whether Alaska’s senators would go along.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the White House is not considering a deal involving smaller acreage. He said any proposal to decrease the proposed drilling area was “not at the request of the White House.”

“The White House will continue to work with the Senate to get the job done,” he said of the Arctic refuge drilling issue.