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An Oregon bill to make it easier to buy and sell scrap metal is on its way to the Senate floor after getting near-unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

House Bill 2403 was approved by the House on April 8 with a vote of 57-0.

State Sen. Betsy Close, R-Albany, was excused from Thursday’s committee meeting, but there were no nay votes in committee either.

The bill was sponsored by state Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, who said it would clean up some of the unintended consequences that arose after lawmakers made their first attempt to crack down on metal theft in the 2009 session with Senate Bill 570.

“This new law was successful, and metal theft went down, but in the process, we placed a significant burden upon our metal recycling businesses,” he said.

Olson said HB 2403 would accomplish three important things. First, it would allow recyclers to mail payments to a post office box.

“There is a portion of the population, especially in rural areas, who do not have mail receptacles at their street address,” Olson said.

Secondly, the bill would allow recyclers to release payments directly if their checks were undelivered after 10 days. An existing provision allows recyclers to request permission from law enforcement agencies to release payments directly if their checks were returned as undeliverable. “But there is no provision for payments that are undelivered or lost in the mail,” Olson said. “This (bill) allows for the metal recycler to request permission to release payment of a lost check without having to mail the replacement.”

Thirdly, the bill would simplify the process for issuing payments to a commercial seller or nonprofit.

“For a metal recycler to issue payment to a commercial seller or nonprofit, the delivery person must be on an authorized list provided by the commercial seller,” Olson explained. “This can cause issues with new employees and especially for nonprofit organizations. This would allow anyone to deliver if the payment is going to a commercial seller or nonprofit.”

The bill, as currently amended, has received widespread industry support, including officials at the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association.

“Metal theft has been a significant ongoing problem for our plumbing and mechanical industry,” said Frank Wall, the association’s executive director.

He added that his members don’t want to see significant changes in the existing law, but “the changes made by (HB) 2403 are small improvements to the current process that will make it work more efficiently and fix the rural address issue.”

In other legislative action on Thursday, members of the Senate Business and Transportation Committee passed House Bill 2268 to the Senate floor with a do-pass recommendation. The bill would clarify qualifications for firms providing architectural services.

It mostly boils down to copy editing, said James Denno, administrator of the Oregon Board of Architect Examiners.

The bill clarifies language relating to architecture firms and construction documents such as drawings, specifications and plans, he said. It also remove dates, licensing cycles, deadlines and stamp requirements from state statutes – allowing them to be established by administrative rules, he added.

“It cleans up language such as the words ‘must,’ ‘shall,’ ‘license’ and ‘registration,’ ” Denno said. “The bill was drafted in an effort to bring statutory language up to date in the regulation of architects and architecture firms. Over time, codes and laws, industry terminology, construction documents and document submission technologies and state licensing technologies have changed. As a result, portions of the statue have come obsolete or dated.”

The bill is on a fast track toward approval, having been approved by the full House, 56-0, on Feb. 13. Four legislators were excused from the vote.