COLUMBIA, S.C. - Local governments would not be able to regulate a variety of businesses, including large hog and poultry operations, under a bill in a Senate subcommittee.

"The legislation is an aggressive and brutal assault upon home rule," Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. told a Senate Agriculture subcommittee Thursday. If it became law, cities would lose authority on a variety of issues that affect quality of life, he said.

For instance, citizen complaints led his city to force bars to close at 2 a.m. in downtown Charleston. Since then, crime is down and the area is more livable, he said. But the legislation would keep local citizens and governments "from making decisions that affect their quality of life."

The bill is widely seen as an effort to bar local governments from adopting regulations that are more restrictive than the state Department of Health and Environmental Control uses to permit large livestock and poultry operations. But it goes further, saying that local governments can't adopt regulations tougher than the state's on "production of livestock or poultry, agribusiness, business, or industry."

State Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers says the state's regulations are solid and based on science - and sprang from local governments wanting the state's help in developing standards. Now, "it seems that local governments want to go beyond these regulations," he said.

"The net result will make it more difficult for agriculture and industry to expand and profitably exist," Weathers said. Proposed local regulations are often arbitrary and lack proper research, he said.

The subcommittee did not act on the legislation Thursday.

But most of the panel's members said the bill's scope should be narrowed so it only affects agricultural businesses.

Several local government leaders spoke against the legislation. Sam Drunker, a member of the Williamsburg County Council, asked senators why they'd want to "attract big business that no one wants."

Senators on the panel, however, said local governments don't have to turn to tougher regulations if they would enact countywide zoning that would limit land use. But they don't want to take the political heat for that, said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

The debate wouldn't be happening "if the county councils would get on the stick and do what they're supposed to," Hutto said. "Just tell us where to put them. But don't fail to tell us where to put them and then complain when we tell you where they're going to go."

The legislation's future is far from certain.

Sen. Phil Levants, D-Sumter, has helped derail similar bills in the past and will try to do the same with legislation he called "the epitome of big government in Columbia telling local government what they can and cannot do." The state's done a poor job in the past, he said, by allowing hazardous waste operations with little or no input from citizens and communities they affect.