A Senate panel looking at road funding has agreed to increase the state’s fuel tax by 20 cents over five years and to index it for inflation.

The move came after Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Larry Grooms told the panel that the state’s highway commission has said the state needs $1.4 billion more a year to bring the state’s roads and bridges to good condition.

The 20-cent increase would generate about $700 million, said Grooms and Sen. Ray Cleary, chairman of the panel.

However, it would likely run into opposition by Gov. Nikki Haley, who has said she will approve no more than a 10-cent increase in the gas tax and then only if lawmakers also reduce the income tax rate from 7 to 5 percent and also scrap the current system for a highway commission.

Haley and State Transportation Secretary Janet Oakley have said the roughly $400 million that would be raised in the governor’s plan would preserve the state’s roads.

Cleary started Tuesday’s meeting by saying he had met with the governor who insisted on the tax relief she has proposed as well as making the state Department of Transportation a cabinet agency.

He warned that based upon that conversation, his own roads-funding plan that he believes would raise $950 million is “dead on arrival” and that the Senate should prepare for a veto.

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