The future of South Carolina's ports, including a possible $450 million terminal in Jasper County, will be discussed by a new state Senate subcommittee today in Columbia.

The Ports Authority Subcommittee was formed as an offshoot of the state Senate's finance committee late last month as questions about port operations in Charleston and a possible county-owned port in Jasper circulated.

On Jan. 7 the Jasper County Council shook the region when it announced a three-part exclusivity agreement with SSA Marine, one of the world's largest private port developers.

Jasper officials have worked to bring a $450 million port to their side of the Savannah River for more than a decade and developed a plan with SSA Marine that relies exclusively on private backing.

In response, the S.C. State Ports Authority filed a declaratory lawsuit in the S.C. Supreme Court seeking judgment that it has the sole or superior right to develop ports in the state and on the Savannah River.

"What (the State Ports Authority is) trying to do is more than the Ports Authority can do," Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, said Wednesday. "We want to see how they plan to go to private enterprise and to fill in all the 'what-ifs.'"

Beaufort and Jasper counties will be represented on the new seven-member committee by Richardson and Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland.

"We're going to hear the Ports Authority's take on what they've been doing in the last six months," Richardson said.

The committee is expected to hear a presentation from the members of the state Ports Authority executive board and their director, Bernard Groseclose, today.

"We were asked to brief (the subcommittee) on the Ports Authority's mission, our statewide goals and all the projects in Charleston, Jasper and across the state," authority spokesman Byron Miller said Wednesday.

The subcommittee could be used as a clearinghouse for information from otherwise conflicted groups, Pinckney said.

"At some point I want representatives of Jasper and SSA to come before the committee," he said Wednesday. "This is an information gathering committee, to give the Senate a better understanding of current port developments, in Jasper and throughout the state."

The Ports Authority Subcommittee meets at 9:30 a.m. today in the Gressette Building in Columbia.