Three words at the tail end of a state Senate bill this week captured some of the ongoing tensions between Hilton Head Island and the state.

The bill, known as the "hog bill," would restrict towns from imposing regulations on farming that are stricter than the state's limitations. But the end of the bill includes a phrase saying the same would apply to "business or industry," meaning towns would relinquish many of their regulations to the state, opponents say.

"Our tree ordinance, that would go out the window. Our wetlands ordinance -- the state ordinance is not even as close to as stringent as ours," Mayor Tom Peeples said. "The ability to control our signs and lights, ... the ability to mandate landscape plans. Everything you can just about think of that has to do with what the town regulates, if this bill passed, would go away."

Peeples, as president of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, traveled to Columbia on Thursday morning to testify against the bill at a hearing. The bill, opposed by the association in previous years, would be catastrophic to the concept of home rule because of the three-word phrase applying it to all "business or industry," opponents say.

The issue highlights some of the differences between Hilton Head and state officials, who often have been at odds over other issues, from legislation to funding sources. It also marks the balancing of priorities Peeples has tried for during his tenure as president of the association.

In speeches and talks, he's pushed for cooperation to repair the adversarial relationship between the state and local governments. But the town still often finds itself fighting many issues.

"There's lots of legislation that gets dealt with in Columbia that is not conducive to healthy and vibrant towns and cities," Peeples said. "Most of the time, we're on the defensive rather than the offensive. We're trying to keep different things from happening that would hurt cities and towns."

Objections to weakening home rule have been heard before. They are being renewed this year by the re-emergence of the hog bill and another bill passed by the state House of Representatives earlier this month that requires municipalities to pay to relocate billboards.

The municipal association has made it a priority to defend home rule, but Peeples also has been able to get the group to focus on partnerships with the state and other localities, association executive director Howard Duvall said.

"In recent years, the state has been trying to pre-empt local government authority," Duvall said. "There's tension of counties and cities towards the state. I think more and more we are realizing we must partner with each other."

The effort to cooperate more with state legislators has been somewhat successful, some local officials say. Members of the subcommittee that considered the hog bill last week said they wanted the bill's scope narrowed to affect agricultural businesses only, according to news reports. The municipal association had hoped to defeat the whole bill, but Peeples said narrowing its scope is a consolation victory.

Peeples and other town officials meet with local delegates -- Rep. Richard Chalk and Sen. Scott Richardson of Hilton Head and Rep. Bill Herbkersman of Bluffton -- about once a month. The association has added "partnership" as one of its three main themes this year and is working to educate legislators on issues important to municipalities, Duvall said.

The House is considering a bill that would allow towns to hold a referendum to have a capital-projects sales tax, something municipalities have been lobbying for as a way to help keep property taxes down. Co-sponsors of that bill include Chalk and Rep. Catherine Ceips of Beaufort.

Chalk said he understands the issues Hilton Head and other local governments want to defend in Columbia, but he said a good working relationship already exists between local and state officials.

"Everybody wants to protect their turf," he said. "Sometimes you have to balance interests from a legislative standpoint."

He said he did not agree that Hilton Head and state officials have an adversarial relationship. But Chalk said he doesn't always succumb to the local governments' wishes on state issues.

"You can't expect that the municipal association is going to be able to come to the legislature and dictate to the legislature what they're going to do," he said. "We have open lines of communication."