INDIANAPOLIS —A measure intended to give Indiana's governor broad toll road-building authority hit a stumbling block in the state Senate on Monday.
The problem: Senators couldn't agree on what the bill says.
The bill is part of Gov. Mitch Daniels' legislative agenda. It would allow Indiana's governor to sign road-building deals with private companies through 2021, without the General Assembly's approval.
But it's how the bill would affect existing roadways that raised questions.
At the same time, the bill seems to both forbid and allow tolling on the 142-mile Indianapolis-to-Evansville section of Interstate 69 that is currently under construction.
Forbidding such tolls is the goal, said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Tom Wyss, the Fort Wayne Republican who authored Senate Bill 473.
But language that was amended into the measure in the House of Representatives appears to undermine that goal, several Democratic and Republican senators argued Monday.
"It makes me uncomfortable," said Sen. Richard Bray, R-Martinsville.
Wyss said the Indiana Department of Transportation, the state's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency and others have told him that is not the case.
"If somebody was going to try to toll I-69," he said, "they'd have to have legislative approval."
Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, dealt the last blow.
"I am absolutely positive that Sen. Wyss is sincere in what he's saying," Hume said.
But despite what Wyss believes, he said, "it is very clear" that the bill would allow tolls on I-69. Therefore, he said, the language ought to be straightened out in conference committee.
"It just needs to be done that way," he said.
Almost immediately, Wyss withdrew his bill and filed the necessary paperwork to place it in conference committee.
"We'll have to change the wording," he said.
Now, a four-member joint House and Senate conference committee will be appointed to try to smooth out the language ahead of Friday's deadline for this year's session to end.