BRIEFS: Senate considering roads again, high gun deaths in S.C.

Roads bill goes back to Senate

The state Senate may not concur with a House bill for $2 billion in borrowing for roads after the House amended a Senate bill that took two years for the upper chamber to approve.

Sources say there is a lot of discussion in the Senate on whether to push forward with the borrowing bill, which would allocate $200 million in general fund revenues for at least 15 years to borrow $2 billion to improve roads and bridges now.  In debate is whether the Senate will go along with the House’s insistence to allow the governor to appoint members of the state Department of Transportation and allow highway commissioners to appoint the DOT secretary, with the advice and consent of the General Assembly.

If the Senate does not vote by the end of next week, the bill could die for the year.  If it votes against concurring, the bill would go to a conference committee of the House and Senate for a compromise, which could be taken up when the chambers return in mid-June after primary elections to consider vetoes.  If the Senate agrees, the measure will become law.

“DOT reform is a crucial piece to the road funding puzzle,” House Speaker Jay Lucas said in a press release.  ‘The General Assembly should not give another penny to the Department of Transportation without certain accountability requirements in place to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.  I am very pleased the House successfully amended the Senate version to include governance restructuring as an effort to promote efficiency within DOT.”

Map highlights high gun deaths as distinctive in S.C.

A May 16 report on NPR via Stateline showed that South Carolina’s most distinctive cause of death is its high rate of homicides caused by guns — 5.7 per 100,000 deaths, versus a 3.5 rate nationally.

Other states with gun deaths as their distinctive cause of death were Louisiana (9.7 per 100,000 deaths), Mississippi (9.0), Illinois (4.9) and Florida (4.5).

However in the Palmetto State, homicide was far from the major causes of death.  The top five causes in South Carolina were heart disease (181.1 per 100,000), cancer (171.4), chronic lower respiratory disease (48.2), accidents (48.2) and stroke (44.2).

“Some states stick out because they experience certain types of deaths –ranging from alcohol-related to accidental falls — at higher rates than the national norm.

Accidental overdose was most distinctive in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the analysis of 2014 federal data showed.  In Virginia, New Jersey and Texas, the distinctive death cause was blood poisoning.