VIDEO: Roads Bill Being Blocked in Senate
A filibuster continued on the Senate floor Thursday to prevent a vote on the roads bill.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — On Thursday, the debate over the roads bill continued in the Senate.
“They don’t want to know why it’s not fixed, they want to know when it’s going to be fixed and they wanted the answer to be yesterday,” said Senator Lee Bright.
A bill to fund fixing South Carolina roadways is hitting a road block in the Senate.
“If you raise the gas tax tomorrow there will not be pixie dust thrown throughout the state to fix all the roads,” said Bright.
On the senate floor, Senator Bright filibustered for several hours Thursday to stop the senate’s roads bill from reaching a vote, citing the 12 cent gas tax as the hold up.
“It’s just hard to justify a tax increase to the people of South Carolina when you’ve got a billion and a half new dollars, 3 quarter of a billion recurring,” said Bright.
Instead of including a tax increase in the bill, Senator Bright said there is new money to fund fixing roads and bridges across the state and suggested an amended restructuring bill without a gas tax.
“Let’s talk about restructuring the DOT (Department of Transportation) and the state infrastructure bank” explained Bright.
However, other senators are eager to get a roads bill passed after days of stalled debate.
“It’s our task to come up with a long-term solution to this, we have an opportunity to do something great here for the next generation and to provide opportunity and jobs,” explained Senator Thomas McElveen. “But if we just keep doing this thing where we take a little surplus every year and put it on there, I just keeping asking the question what’s going to happen in the lean year?”
“This affects every citizen of South Carolina, it’s about public safety, it’s about quality of life, it’s about economic development and there’s never been an issue that touches everyone like this does because everyone uses the roads,” said Senator Joel Lourie.
