COLUMBIA (AP) - A bill approved by a Senate subcommittee Thursday would increase law enforcement's ability to criminally prosecute cases of price gouging.

The legislation allows the attorney general to use the state's price gouging laws when the president issues a disaster declaration somewhere in the United States.

Current law says criminal charges can't be brought unless the governor declares a state of emergency in South Carolina. That hobbled Attorney General Henry McMaster's efforts last
August to prosecute price gouging claims made when some gas stations raised prices to almost five dollars a gallon in the wake of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.

The Senate bill now heads to the Judiciary Committee.