State Senators took public input this week on a bill they call the "hog bill." It should be called the "hogwash bill" because it would uproot local government, leaving behind a smelly mess.

The "hog bill" is designed to grease the skids for the mass production of swine in what are known as "hog factories." The smell and other concerns with them are well documented in states where they exist, and South Carolina, with former state Sen. Holly Cork of Hilton Head Island leading the way, moved to restrict them here.

So did local communities, and that is the core of the problem with the "hog bill" now before a Senate subcommittee. It would "provide that a permit issued by a local government must not impose a more restrictive or burdensome requirement than a state statute or regulation relating to the production of livestock or poultry, agribusiness, business or industry."

The Municipal Association of South Carolina, with Hilton Head Island Mayor Tom Peeples as its president, says the ramifications of this bill reach well beyond hog farms.

The bill would prevent, among many other things, a municipal government from imposing local regulations dealing with the permitting of certain building and land-clearing activities, the permitting and erection of signs and outdoor advertising, water and wastewater permits, the permitting and location of solid waste and recycling facilities and certain development standards found in the Local Government Development Agreement Act.

The state legislature has no business usurping these local decisions.