Anderson County’s three longest-tenured legislators agreed Friday that finding money to fix the state’s roads and bridges will be the top task facing the South Carolina General Assembly this year. “The No. 1 issue that is facing us is roads,” said Rep. Brian White, who is chairman of the state House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee. The Republican from Anderson is starting his eighth term.

A report issued by the South Carolina Department of Transportation last year estimated that the state needs to come up with nearly $43 billion in additional money during the next 25 years for maintaining and expanding highways and other transit needs. “We all know it is bad,” White said during the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce’s monthly Toast N’ Topics breakfast at Tucker’s Restaurant on Clemson Boulevard in Anderson. “It’s an expensive endeavor.”

Raising South Carolina’s 16-cent per gallon gas tax, which is among the nation’s lowest, is one of the road-funding options that will likely be considered when state lawmakers return to the Columbia later this month, White said. But, he cautioned, such a move represents only a partial solution. “Just increasing the gas tax is not going to fix the roads,” White said.

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