COLUMBIA, S.C. - Plans to sell the shipping terminal at Port Royal have run into trouble after a last-minute amendment Thursday.

The amendment limits the ability of governors to fire members of the State Ports Authority and Santee Cooper boards. That change came quietly as the bill passed the Senate on Thursday.

But the change angered Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, who asked Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, to retrieve the bill from the House. Ryberg has opposed similar efforts in the past, saying it should be left to the governor to decide who serves on those boards and for how long.

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Dick Elliott, D-North Myrtle Beach, says the governor can only fire members of those boards for malfeasance, incompetence, absenteeism, misconduct and other specific shortcomings.

In 2000, a 3-2 state Supreme Court said that then-Gov. Jim Hodges could remove Santee Cooper board members at his discretion.

Ryberg says the state's chief executive deserve the authority to continue using that power.

State Rep. David Umphlett, R-Moncks Corner, sponsored a similar bill in the House that's now in the Senate. Governors shouldn't be able to clean the slate of board members at those agencies, he said. They are two of the state's largest business concerns and their board members shouldn't work at the will of the governor, he said.

It's unclear what will happen to the bill if it returns to an already packed Senate calendar.