Ledyard King

THE NEWS-PRESS Washington bureau

WASHINGTON - Sen. Marco Rubio’s opposition four years ago to a landmark bill steering billions in oil-spill fine money to the Gulf Coast has left some hard feelings along Florida’s Panhandle.

It’s not clear whether that lingering resentment will cost the Florida senator measurable support on Tuesday, as he tries to win the state’s GOP presidential primary and revive his flagging campaign against formidable odds.

Recent polls show Rubio trailing businessman Donald Trump between 7 and 23 percentage points. A bad outcome for Rubio likely would mean the end of his presidential hopes.

Rubio visiting Yabba Island Grill in Naples on Friday

Trump is expected to win the Panhandle by a large margin, and it isn’t helping Rubio that he was the only Gulf Coast senator in 2012 to vote against the Restore Act (for Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States).

The bill, which passed the Senate 76-22, directed that Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas receive 80 percent of all administrative and civil penalties to be paid by BP for the 2010 spill. The accident, the nation’s worst ecological disaster, poured 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Residents, officials and environmental

activists in the five states made emotional pleas to Congress for recovery money, saying they were still reeling from the spill two years after it occurred.

Former Gulf County Commissioner Warren Yeager, a fierce Restore Act advocate who had backed former Florida Gov. Jeb. Bush’s presidential campaign, said Rubio’s opposition to the law is a key reason he won’t support him on Tuesday.

“It’s forgotten amongst the general public, (but) it’s not forgotten amongst the people that were involved,” said Yeager, now the county’s Restore Act coordinator. “Quite a few of us along the Gulf Coast region went to D.C. lobbying hard for that thing. So all of us, we probably resent it a little bit.”

Escambia County Commissioner Grover C. Robinson IV, another outspoken Restore Act supporter, said he “couldn’t have been more disappointed” by Rubio’s vote. But he said he’ll still vote for his home-state senator.

“It’s politics and you learn to move on,” said Robinson, a Republican who also had supported Bush. “What’s in the best interest of the state? At this particular time, Rubio is the best alternative for Florida.”

Rubio helped craft the Restore Act legislation with Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and other Gulf Coast lawmakers from both parties. But he turned against the measure as Congress amended it.

Rubio objected to changes that allowed a portion of the fine money to aid coastal cleanup efforts in other parts of the country. He also didn’t like the inclusion of an arcane budgeting maneuver slammed as a tax increase by anti-tax hardliners in Washington.

“This is no longer a Gulf Coast restoration bill,” Rubio said at the time. “It’s a federal power grab that exploits the BP spill to pay for special-interest projects driven by the usual ‘what’s in it for me’ Washington mentality.”

The stance angered some and confused many who pointed out that the vast majority of the fine money would still go to Gulf Coast communities trying to rebuild their spill-ravaged economies.

But many also agreed that the bill’s overwhelming passage made it easier to forgive Rubio’s opposition.

“I’ve never heard anyone mention that there’s heartburn with it,” said Wakulla County Commissioner Ralph Thomas who is backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s primary.

Rubio’s opposition to Restore has helped feed a narrative that he’s paid little attention to an area of the state that’s very different, culturally, from his West Miami neighborhood.

Most Panhandle residents aren’t focused on Rubio’s 2012 vote, said Collier Merrill, a Pensacola businessman who chaired Bush’s campaign in Northwest Florida.

“It’s more that he hasn’t been up here much,” he said. “Whether that’s perceived or reality, it doesn’t matter. It’s what’s in the voters’ minds.”

Rubio didn’t help his own popularity on the Panhandle during an appearance on Fox News earlier this month.

When host Bret Baier suggested he would have a tough time in North Florida because neighboring counties in Alabama and Georgia went so heavily for Trump on Super Tuesday, Rubio downplayed the region’s significance.

“Obviously these are important counties and great people that live in these counties, but you’re talking about North Florida, not heavily populated areas,” he said. “They’re important, very conservative areas, and we’re going to do well there as well, but again, that’s not an accurate analysis of Florida, where the bulk of the vote comes from the I-4 corridor, Southwest Florida and, of course, my home area of Miami and even up into Jacksonville.”

Locals viewed it as a slight.

“I don’t know why you go out of your way to disparage an area within your home state,” Robinson said.

Rubio will pay a visit to the area Saturday night when he holds a rally at The Fish House, a popular Pensacola restaurant Merrill owns. The visit will come nearly two months after more than 10,000 people attended a thunderous Trump rally at Pensacola Bay Center.

Twitter: @ledgeking