COLUMBIA, S.C. - Supporters of a board that would set up minimum prices for milk churned out a victory Wednesday in the House.

The House approved creating the board with a 66-47 vote after nearly two hours of debate from opponents who said it would drive up retail prices.

"It's a socialist bill," Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston said. "I want to kill it. I want to drive a silver stake through its heart."

But supporters said the state now has fewer than 90 dairy farmers and they need protection.

"We're a dairy-deficient state," Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-Laurens, said. Because of that, store shelves in the state are stocked with aging milk from other states that goes bad too fast in refrigerators at home. "It's old by the time it gets to you," Duncan said.

South Carolina children deserve fresh milk, he said.

Duncan said the legislation is a stopgap measure to "keep dairies from disappearing in South Carolina."

But there's nothing in the legislation that says the board will be eliminated, Rep. Dan Tripp, R-Mauldin, said. The legislation calls for a board that will operate within the Agriculture Department with its costs covered by a penny-per-gallon fee dairy operators would pay, he said.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is pure price-fixing," Rep. Wallace Scarborough, R-Charleston, said. "We're getting ready to fix prices. ... We're getting ready to get rid of the free market in South Carolina."

Tripp and Altman said it was odd that so many in the House who have supported streamlining state government were supporting legislation to create a new state bureaucracy. Stores that buy 150,000 pounds or more of milk monthly would have to be licensed by the board.

Gov. Mark Sanford agrees the board would add to the state bureaucracy, his spokesman said.

The governor "is not inclined to sign or support this legislation," Sanford spokesman Will Folks said.