As it rushed toward its mid-session break, the Montana Senate Thursday killed a bill to cut back on the corrosive de-icing chemicals sprayed on the state’s roadways each winter.
Republican Dee Brown of Hungry Horse says the Montana Transportation Department is using more salt-based chemicals to melt ice on Montana’s highways, potentially damaging not just cars and trucks, but the environment as well.
"I am very concerned that the runoff and continuing runoff of chloride-based products is not good for us," Brown said.
She wrote a bill to gradually reduce salt-based chemicals to 2010 levels, and phase in the use of potassium acetate, a less damaging solution that would cost $9 million more a year.
Llew Jones, a Republican from Conrad, objected because the higher cost would have to come out of state gas tax revenue, which is already being stretched thin.
“I don’t think there’s a viable alternative and the other truth is, on the other side, were we to do this we have to amend into it the increase in the gas tax, because we have to afford it.”
The Senate voted down the “nicer de-icer” proposal 16 to 34, on a day when lawmakers in both chambers were rushing through dozens of bills that must be transmitted to the other house, or die. The so-called “transmittal deadline” is the end of business Friday.
