Advocates of building a major new airport in south suburban Peotone are quietly pushing two blank “shell” bills through the Illinois General Assembly in hopes of resuscitating the languishing proposal to build a third Chicago-area airport.

The two bills, proposed by State Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson (D-Chicago Heights), create an Air Transportation Act and an Eastern Will County Regional Cooperation and Planning Act. Both only have titles and no text, and are the equivalent to a legislative blank check. No one knows exactly what these bills will ultimately contain and the uncertainty has attracted the ire of local airport critics.

“We don’t know what they’re going to do,” said George Oschenfeld, president of Shut This Airport Down, a Monee, Ill.-based grass roots organization opposed to building an airport in Peotone. “On the other hand, if you make an airport authority, you need an airport authority to run an airport.”

So-called “shell” bills are often created in the Illinois legislature, Halvorson explained. “We put them out there in case we come to an agreement.” 

The wisdom of having an airport in Peotone, located roughly 40 miles south of Chicago, has long been questioned. Critics argue that the airport is too far from Chicago to be useful and that the airport in Gary should be expanded to accommodate growing air traffic. Local opponents fear that people who live in Will County will be stuck with the infrastructure costs while others in the region will reap the benefits.

“They won’t be paying their fair share of the taxes,” Ochsenfeld said.

The conflict also extends to who would run the airport if it were built. Currently, the private investment consortium LCOR Inc. and SNC-Lavalin, which is associated with U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., has agreed to finance, build and manage the airport. “This area needs more runways,” said Rick Bryant, spokesman for Congressman Jackson.

 “There’s good infrastructure to the site,” Bryant said, referring to the I57 interstate and Metra rail on the west side of the proposed airport site, and 394 and Pacific rail on the east side. “We would have transit access to the city center.”

The spokesman also claimed that the costs of building the airport would not impact the area. “We designed it so there is no financial responsibility to the community,” he said.

The two bills are currently in the Senate rules committee. If, as expected, no progress is made on an airport agreement, the regional planning act will expire on May 31.