JACKSON - A bill to extend Mississippi's four-lane construction program into 2025 has won approval in the state Senate.
The bill, passed without debate Monday, now goes to the House.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation's new program retains the construction schedule established when the four-lane building program was first enacted in 1987. MDOT's proposal is that the new road program focus on congested areas, such as casinos and fast-growing cities.
Under the bill, MDOT would periodically review the program to see if needs have changed.
"The '87 program is untouched," said Highways Committee Chairman Bob Dearing, D-Natchez. "These new roads will be built based on need and not on politics. It is a very, very ambitious program. It does not require any additional taxes."
About 3.5 cents per gallon of Mississippi fuel taxes, or $120 million a year, goes into the 1987 program. Dearing said the bill extends those taxes to cover the new program.
The Senate on Monday also passed a bill that bars cities from taking over customers of rural electric cooperative and rural water systems when an area is annexed.
Sen. Tommy Robertson, R-Moss Point, chairman of the Senate Public Utilities Committee, said the bill tightens up a 1987 state law.
In 1997, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the statute in a challenge filed by Oxford and 23 other cities. The cities said the law was unconstitutional because it bars city power companies from condemning an Electric Power Association's lines and taking an EPA's customers.
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