A bill to lower the legal blood alcohol limit in Oregon to .05 percent will not move forward in Salem this year.

Sen. President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, confirmed Monday that his Senate Bill 7, which calls for Oregon to lower its drunken driving limit from .08 to .05 percent blood alcohol content, is dead.

“We’re not going to do it this session,” Courtney said of his attempt to impose tougher blood alcohol content rules. “I’m not surprised. I do know that we have made progress.”

Tuesday is the deadline for hundreds of bills to be moved out of Senate and House policy committees, and Courtney said Monday his bill will not be one of them. Kevin Moore, legislative aide for Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee assigned the drunken driving legislation, confirmed Senate Bill 7 won’t be advancing this session.

In email, Moore said the concept likely will be considered by an interim work group “dealing with related issues.”

Gov. Kate Brown in January threw her support behind Courtney’s bill, calling it “the right way to go.”

Utah is the only state to lower its legal drinking limit from .08 to .05. Michigan lawmakers also introduced a similar bill last month proposing to lower the legal drinking limit there.

In each of the states, the bill was met with opposition from the alcohol lobby. Drivers can still be cited and arrested for driving while impaired if they have a blood alcohol content lower than .08 under current law.

About one-third of highway fatalities nationwide are alcohol-related. Alcohol industry lobbyists have argued the vast majority – 70 percent – of fatalities tied to alcohol use involve drivers with a blood alcohol content of .15 or higher, nearly twice the legal drinking limit.

Courtney said he wasn’t expecting to pass the bill this session, but he wanted to move the conversation forward.

Earlier this year, The Oregonian/OregonLive conducted a drinking test with four reporters to explore whether our staffers knew the difference between their abilities at .05 versus .08.

The reporters – two men and two women -- all indicated they felt impaired at or below a .05 blood alcohol content level after drinking about two beers in an hour.

Sgt. Tim Plummer, the top trainer for the Oregon State Police, said the state average for those arrested on suspicion of a DUII is .16, twice the current legal limit.

The bigger impact of lowering the BAC would be cultural, Plummer predicted. “What it will help do is raise awareness to folks that you can be impaired at an .05,” he said.

Between 2013 and 2017, drunken drivers killed 543 people in crashes where drivers had a BAC at or above the currently legal limit. Eleven people died in crashes where a driver blew between a .05 and .08, according to state records.

Courtney said he hopes to hold an informational hearing in Salem so lawmakers can better understand the rationale behind the legislation. “You’ve got to get the idea out,” he said, “nothing does it like introducing a bill.”

He plans to push the issue in the interim session and hope to bring it back with full committee support in coming years.

He said he is concerned about any level of impairment for drivers coupled with distractions like cell phone and technology inside cars coupled factors outside vehicles, such as pedestrians and cyclists. “You need to really have all your faculties in order to drive today in an urban area,” he said.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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