Another beer tax proposal brewing.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing for a beer tax increase says it will have a new version out this week with a realistic chance of passing.

Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, and Sens. Rick Metsger, D-Welches, and Rod Monroe, D-Portland, say their nickel-a-drink tax increase bill could be in circulation by today. And despite resistance to higher taxes on a product with strong Oregon roots, they say the proposal seems to be gaining momentum.

"It's got legs," said Metsger, who last week presided over a committee that put out an alternative plan, a bill allowing cities and counties to impose local taxes on beer.

Producers, distributors and retailers oppose the idea of an excise on beer, which in Oregon currently enjoys one of the lowest tax rates among the states.

The local-option tax would include the additional challenge of collecting taxes of different amounts depending where in Oregon it was sold by the wholesaler to the retail store or drinking establishment.

Lawmakers said the local-option beer tax bill is helping build pressure for the more conventional statewide beer tax proposal, which Metsger said should be ready for bill drafting today.

Another factor in the proposal's apparent revival: It puts 70 percent of the revenue into a special fund that could only be tapped to pay for Oregon State Police.

It would take an act of the Legislature to divert those dollars to other spending.

He said the Legislature's avowed support for restoring decades of cuts to the state police highway patrols should produce enough votes to meet the three-fifths majority for a tax increase in each chamber.

"Are we not here to make sure we fund properly our public safety?" Esquivel asked rhetorically.

In the House, passage would require bipartisan support, since the majority Democrats hold 31 seats - five shy of the 36 needed to meet the supermajority requirement for taxes.

Esquivel said he expects the bill to garner about 26 Democratic votes and 10 Republican votes in the House.

Should the measure pass, he said it would produce enough revenue to gradually hire an additional 300 troopers - enough to bring patrols back to the level of the late 1970s before the force started to shrink.

Here's how the latest beer-tax proposal would work, according to its backers:

The beer tax, currently $2.60 per barrel, would jump to $19.13 a barrel. The per-bottle portion of the tax would go from 0.8 cents to 5.8 cents.

All beer - whether made by out-of-state macrobrewers or smaller-scale Oregon craft brewers - would be taxed. The only exception would be beer made and sold in brewpubs.

The beer tax increase would be accompanied by an increase in liquor-sale profits that go to the state general fund.

The resulting revenue would total about $147 million for 2007-09. Of that, $130 million would go to the state police, $5.7 million to mental health, $8.6 million to counties and $2.8 million to cities.

Despite the optimism of the plan's supporters, its passage is by no means guaranteed.

The two lawmakers who started the session as the most vocal advocates of boosting the beer tax offered lukewarm appraisals of the latest proposal. Both Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, and Sen. Bill Morrisette, D-Springfield, said it fails to put enough money into drug and alcohol treatment and prevention, and mental health services. Their bill would have made those areas the largest revenue recipients of a boost in the beer tax, with $122 million per biennium.

While it makes sense to help bolster state police ranks beyond the 100 new troopers already included in the upcoming budget, Morrisette said the revenue needs to be better linked to the social issues surrounding alcohol consumption. With more state police will come more arrests.

"And my concern is, what are we going to do with these people when we arrest them and take them off the road?" Morrisette said.

Paul Romain, lobbyist for the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors Association, said he expects lawmakers' concerns about raising taxes in a way that harms in-state breweries to hold sway this session.

"I think the opposition to the beer tax is still pretty strong," he said.