By Alan K. Ota

Billy Carter, President Jimmy Carter’s late younger brother, is remembered as the colorful self-described redneck gas station owner and one-time registered foreign agent for Libya.

Now, his trademark service station in Plains, Ga. — which was reborn as a paean to his signature wardrobe of colorful cowboy boots, T-shirts, gold-plated peanuts and other memorabilia including his favorite beer — appears close to earning special recognition as part of a national historic landmark.

The House is slated this afternoon to consider under expedited procedures a bill (HR 1471) that would roughly double the size of a National Park Service site honoring President Carter in part by making the Billy Carter Service Station Museum an extension of the presidential historic site.

The CBO estimates that the proposal to add about 30 acres to the current Carter presidential site would cost $17 million over five years, including planning and development costs, about $1 million to buy 10 acres and about $2 million in additional staffing and other expenses.

The gas station served as an informal headquarters for the national press during the 1976 and 1980 campaigns. Billy Carter died of pancreatic cancer in 1988 at the age of 51.

Jimmy Carter’s current home and childhood home are already part of the site, which was created by a 1987 law (PL 100-206).