COLUMBIA – The Senate’s majority leader is proposing a comprehensive transportation bill that would provide more than $200 million for the state’s crumbling roads and bridges, move the State Infrastructure Bank and add a second appointee by the governor to the state’s highway commission.

Sen. Harvey Peeler of Gaffney, the Senate’s Republican leader and the bill’s author, said he knows the bill is ambitious.

“I agree it’s a big bill,” he said. “It’s a big bill because it’s a big problem. And it’s getting bigger every day. If I accomplish nothing today, it will at least create a conversation on the needs of our infrastructure in South Carolina.”

Sen. John Scott, a Richland County Democrat, said he thinks Peeler may be trying to do too much.
“I think in trying get it all done in one comprehensive bill, we might not be able to get anything out because of so many different issues,” he told Peeler.

Transportation funding has been the focus of debate in both chambers this year following an estimate by a DOT task force that found it would take $29 billion over 20 years to bring the state’s roads and bridges up to good condition. A business coalition has estimated the state needs $6 billion over 10 years.

The state operates the fourth-largest state-maintained road system in the nation with one of the lowest gas taxes, at 16.75 cents per gallon. It was last raised in 1987.

The House has responded by passing a measure authored by House Speaker Bobby Harrell that would send $80 million of the revenue collected from car sales tax to DOT. The remainder would go to education needs, as is now allocated. The House also appropriated $60 million towards bridge needs.

Peeler said he doesn’t believe an increase in the gas tax is possible and while he is not opposed to Sen. Nikki Setzler’s idea to borrow $500 million through bonds, he doesn’t yet support spending it all on secondary roads.
“I’ve tried to be as realistic as possible in funding our infrastructure needs,” he said of his proposal. “Granted, it’s a drop in the bucket but it’s still a drop. It’s an empty bucket right now.”

The bill’s funding would come from a bevy of sources, he said. Like other bills, his would send money collected from the sales tax onvehicles to the state Department of Transportation. But Peeler’s bill would split the money, currently about $103 million, between DOT and the Infrastructure Bank, which his bill would move into DOT so the DOT board could take over those responsibilities. The money sent to the bank could then be leveraged for bonds, he said.
Peeler and others have complained that the Infrastructure Bank has spent most of its money on projects in a handful of counties in the state.

The bill would require that 20 percent of any new revenue would be used for bridge repairs and construction. This year that would amount to about $100 million, he said.

Other money would come from out-of-state truckers’ fees.

He said state inspectors under the bill would check to be sure ethanol is being blended properly at the pump and that it is being listed as a motor fuel so it is taxed.

The bill also would make the last overhaul of DOT, which resulted in the governor appointing DOT’s director, now called the state transportation secretary, permanent. The law otherwise is set to expire in 2015.

He said the bill would require any future infrastructure bank projects fall under the same priority requirements as other state road projects and only be approved if funding is available.

The bank’s last approved project, final funding for an 8-mile extension to I-526 in Charleston, is to be financed through future revenues because the bank has used up its bonding capacity on the project.

Sen. Paul Thurmond of Charleston asked if Peeler’s bill would impact the I-526 project.

Peeler replied he wasn’t sure but believed the state should be funding repairs to I-85 before paying for an extension of I-526.

“You can have pot holes on Maple Street and live with it,” he said. “But we can’t have pot holes on interstate highways. We have potholes on I-85 today. It’s dangerous to ride on that stretch of road.”

Peeler said he believes I-526 should only be funded after the state pays to widen I-85 to six lanes from North Carolina to the Georgia line.

Courtesy of Greenville Online.