Coastal airport bill on House runway.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - The Senate launched another effort Thursday to give flight to an airport funding bill that's been grounded by House leadership.

House Bill 2537 passed 30-0 in the Senate. It is the second bill sent by the Senate to the House that includes $10 million in lottery-backed bonds as part of a $23 million expansion of the North Bend Airport.

The project is meant to accommodate the growing number of golfers - with money to spend in the local economy - who are filling up private and commercial planes en route to the nearby Bandon Dunes golf courses.

With solid bipartisan support and local buy-in, the effort to improve the economic fortunes of the once down-trodden south coast normally would fly through the Legislature.

But not this time, thanks to a vow by House Majority Leader Wayne Scott, R-Canby, to kill such legislation as a way of punishing a coastal lawmaker who crossed House GOP leaders.

Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, was told that if he didn't abandon his fellow Democrats in their efforts to force a floor vote on an education budget that exceeded what Republicans supported, the airport bill would be killed. Roblan refused to side with the Republicans, and Scott said in a press statement last month that, `The funding for the North Bend airport will not be included in our budget," that Roblan knew what was at stake when he defied GOP leaders, and "that decision was made two months ago and will not change.'

With the original airport measure, Senate Bill 152, languishing in the House, the Senate gutted a separate measure, House Bill 2537, and stuffed into it the same $10 million appropriation for the airport.

The airport lies within Roblan's House district and the Senate district represented by Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay.

She said she remained hopeful about the proposal.

"Oh, eventually they've got to pass it," she said. "It'll pass in one form or another."

The strategy with the latest bill is that, as a House measure, it goes straight to the chamber where all 60 members can vote whether to go along with the Senate language - meaning the House can, if its members choose, sidestep Scott's threat to kill the funding.

The Bandon Dunes courses lie in the adjoining House district of Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach. He supports the funding proposal. Krieger said that he expects GOP members, who hold a majority of House seats, to go along with leadership, however, and refuse to concur with the Senate's changes.

Still, Krieger said, he remained confident that the funding could be revived.

"I have never lost a bill that I wanted," the veteran lawmaker said. "Does anybody want to bet that I won't get it?"