Sens. Rebecca Rios and John Huppenthal, who both sit on the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, said during a hearing Thursday they both had been in crashes caused by drunken drivers.

"It's an ongoing challenge. You wonder why people engage in the behavior they do," Huppenthal, a Republican from Chandler, said.

The senators on the committee unanimously approved Waring's bills Thursday. The Senate Transportation Committee unanimously endorsed the bills earlier this month. The bills would still need approval from the full Senate, House of Representatives and Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Rios, a Democrat from Apache Junction, voted for the bill in committee, but she said she has concerns about the bills and hopes extreme DUI offenders, who could be alcoholics, receive drug or alcohol treatment they need.

In Arizona, crashes in which the driver had a BAC of at least 0.15percent rose to 309 in 2005 from 264 in 2004 - a 17percent increase.

Most people's bodies could not take in enough alcohol to make their BAC 0.15percent or 0.20percent because they would vomit first, Det. Herbert Jacobs of the Phoenix Police Department testified before the Senate committee Thursday.

To have a BAC of 0.20percent, someone weighing 150pounds would have to have eight drinks in an hour, he said.

"To get to a 0.20, you have to have many hours of drinking," said Jacobs, who targets DUI offenders. "You have to have experience."

A driver with a BAC of 0.26percent and four prior DUI convictions killed Molly Steffens' 18-year-old daughter, Brenda, nearly two decades ago.

Steffens, who drove from Tucson on Thursday to speak at the Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee, said her daughter died needlessly and encouraged the senators to endorse the bill.

"Brenda would've fought for me if I would've been killed," Steffens said.

The driver, who was going the wrong way on Interstate10, is serving 24 years in prison for manslaughter, Steffens said.

The League of Arizona Cities and Towns has reservations about the proposals, Senate bills 1026 and 1029, because of the financial burden related to incarceration.

A lobbyist for the group said the costs of housing DUI offenders in jail for longer would fall on local communities.

"We're supportive of the idea of cracking down on drunken driving. We just wanted to point out the cost component," Jeff Kros, the league's legislative director, said.

Kros said data has not yet been collected to determine how much the extra jail time would cost. While DUI offenders are supposed pay for their own incarceration up to a point, many offenders can not pay, so the burden falls onto cities' and towns' general funds, Kros said.

Sen. Chuck Gray, a Republican from Mesa, said the bills would save cities money because they likely would not be responding to as many DUI-related crashes.

"That's their job to put these people in jail. I hope cities would take their responsibility," Gray said during the hearing. "I'm tired of them complaining about their job because of a money issue."