PROVIDENCE — Apparently hoping to squeeze more jobs and taxes out of the port at the state-owned Quonset Business Park, state Sen. Paul E. Moura filed legislation yesterday to create a commission to study ways to intensify shipping activity.

The 10-member House and Senate commission would have a broad mandate to “study economic activity relating to port development.” But yesterday, Moura said it was unlikely to resurrect the divisive plan to transform the sleepy port into a harbor for deep-water container ships.

That proposal, backed by then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond in 1994, sparked bitter debate. It was ultimately scuttled by Governor Carcieri, but the state budget deficit has renewed the focus on the port’s potential.

“I don’t want to get bogged down in a discussion of a megacontainer-port at Quonset,” Moura said in an interview yesterday. “I’m not closing the door on that discussion, but I don’t want to waste time.

“It’s a laudable idea in this day and age when we’re looking to grow jobs in Rhode Island,” Moura, D-East Providence, said. “But it’s unrealistic with the local opposition, the administration’s opposition and the money it would take.”

The container-port project would require extensive dredging and the filling of hundreds of acres in Narragansett Bay. Thirteen years ago, its price tag was estimated at $3 billion.

Far more modest initiatives, however, could also boost activity at the port, according to Moura, a former longshoreman who toured Quonset last month.

The two piers in North Kingstown are mostly used by a single company, North Atlantic Distribution, an automobile importer also known as NORAD.

There is spare capacity. NORAD brings in 120,000 cars per year, and port officials have told the company that they could easily accommodate an expected tripling of that business over the next year.

The legislative commission, Moura said, will study the possibility of Quonset competing to receive barges carrying containers unloaded from large ships berthed in New York, Boston and other large cities on the East Coast. That would relieve traffic congestion from trucks transporting the cargo, and create jobs and new tax revenue at Quonset.

The arrangement, Moura said, would capitalize on the improved network of railroad tracks in and outside the business park.

Last November, NORAD received its first delivery of cars by rail, made possible by the company’s investment in a private railhead and a $6-million rail-improvement project by the Quonset Development Corporation, the division of the state Economic Development Corporation that oversees the Quonset Business Park and the port.

The privately managed Port of Providence could also be expected to benefit from so-called short-sea shipping, which is also being considered for the New Bedford waterfront.

“An operation like that is much more feasible right now,” Moura said. “It would create good, well-paying jobs.”

If approved, the legislative commission would hear testimony from experts in the shipping and fishing industries, and study economic opportunities on all industrial waterfronts, including those in Providence, East Providence and Newport.

The legislation requires approval by the House and Senate.

Spending cuts are inevitable as lawmakers close a $450-million deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Moura said. But the proposed commission’s report, scheduled to be completed by May, could help preserve state services by generating more cash for state coffers, he said.

“I think Quonset is the diamond here. But let’s look at everything,” Moura said. “Everything belongs on the table.”

bgedan@projo.com