House Speaker William J. Murphy and Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano have big, shiny new wheels at their disposal.

Responding to Political Scene inquiries about the two new SUVs with temporary plates parked outside the State House, a spokesman confirmed that the General Assembly has leased the two 2007 four-door, V-6 engine Ford Explorers known among car cognoscenti as “Eddie Bauers” for $1,636.55 month. Total cost over the three-year lease with Flood Ford in East Greenwich: $58,915.

Taxpayers had been paying $1,257.93 a month for two Chrysler Pacificas.

But House spokesman Berman said the three-year leases for those cars were expiring this summer, and the state would have had to pay an additional $17,642 to buy one of those vehicles and $20,204 to buy the other on top of the $45,285 in lease payments already made under the General Assembly’s previous lease arrangement with Lamb Motors.

The new arrangement costs the lawmakers $236 a month more for cars that get a reported 15 to 21 miles per gallon.

But Berman said “the major difference” is that at the end of this three-year lease, the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Legislative Services, chaired by Murphy, will own the two mid-size sports utility vehicles. (Berman said a second Ford dealer, Tasca Automotive, was also offered an opportunity to bid, but only Flood responded.)

Asked to justify the need to spend $58,915 for two brand-new cars in a year when thousands of young people are being tossed off state-subsidized child care or removed from the Department of Children, Youth and Families rolls to save money, Berman said: “The speaker and the Senate president should have access to a state vehicle while conducting state business.”

“These are the only two vehicles that this branch of government owns,” he said. “ I believe there are well over 1,000 state vehicles, and we own two of them.”

One vehicle is assigned to the Office of the Speaker of the House and the other is assigned to the Office of the President of the Senate.

Berman said to his knowledge the cars had never been used to take lawmakers to and from ballgames or fundraisers, but lawmakers do use them as a means of travel to speaking engagements, conferences and come-see-what-we-do visits.

He said they are also sometimes used by legislative staff to shuttle Capitol TV crews to press conferences lawmakers hold outside the State House, and to pick up and deliver supplies.

In addition to the car lease payments, the legislature paid $84,520 in mileage reimbursements to the state’s 113 part-time lawmakers for the use of their own cars at a rate of 48.5 cents a mile for approved business trips and each mile to and from their homes to the State House on days they attend legislative sessions.