A message crawling across the Internet home page of U.S. Rep. John Peterson says:

"Peterson, English amendment stops federal funds for I-80 toll program."

Not yet.

Mr. Peterson, R-Venango County, and U.S. Rep. Phil English, R-Erie, have tacked an amendment onto a proposed federal transportation bill that would prohibit tolls on the interstate highway across Pennsylvania, thereby scuttling state plans to raise more money for roads, bridges and transit.

But the bill has to pass both the U.S. House and Senate and be signed into law by President Bush to take effect.

High-ranking state transportation officials are already saying the measure is doomed.

"The folks we've talked to believe any chance of passage is slim," Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler said.

"We're proceeding as if English's and Peterson's irresponsible amendment doesn't exist," Pennsylvania Turnpike Chief Executive Officer Joe Brimmeier said.

The Turnpike Commission -- in consortium with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation -- is moving ahead to toll the 311-mile highway, raise rates on the existing turnpike in 2009, float bonds and turn over other new revenue to the state.

The goal is to generate $750 million this fiscal year, $850 million in 2008-09, and $950 million a year for the next eight years. In the first year, about $300 million will go to transit; the rest will be used for a backlog of road work and bridge repairs, including $35 million more for counties and municipalities.

Mr. Peterson said the move to forge ahead with plans to toll I-80 displays the arrogance of the Turnpike Commission. And Mr. English chided PennDOT and the Turnpike Commission for not approaching the state's congressional delegation before pushing the tolling plan.

"These folks to date haven't done their homework. They shouldn't have been surprised there was opposition to tolling I-80," Mr. English said. "I feel that in some ways we're getting blamed for their sloppiness."

Mr. Brimmeier said the turnpike will transfer $62.5 million to PennDOT this week, a down payment on $300 million to be deposited in a new Public Transportation Trust Fund to increase subsidies to the Port Authority and six dozen other urban and rural public transportation systems.

Other steps are already under way.

Turnpike and PennDOT officials met last week to discuss the recently passed state transportation funding legislation and identifying steps to implement it.

They authorized Wilbur Smith Associates, a national traffic consulting firm with an "as needed" contract with the turnpike, to conduct a traffic and revenue study on I-80. Its work will include preliminary recommendations about the location of toll barriers.

Mr. Biehler and Mr. Brimmeier jointly sent a letter July 27 to the Federal Highway Administration formally notifying the agency of the state's intent to toll I-80.

The turnpike is looking for an engineering firm to coordinate the I-80 tolling project, prepare the formal federal application and submit it by the end of October.

State officials' hopes for approval have been raised by a U.S. House-Senate report from 1998 that identified I-80 as a "prime example of an interstate that could and should be tolled."

Mr. Peterson, however, said the report placed tolling in the context of maintaining I-80, which was in poor condition at the time. A PennDOT report from 2005, he said, described the interstate as being in good shape.

"I don't think anybody envisioned that you would toll your major highway and then just use the money for anything," Mr. Peterson said.

The anti-tolling effort by Reps. English and Peterson has become a distraction, if not a threat, in the aftermath of a year-long battle involving Gov. Ed Rendell, the state Legislature and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission about raising more revenue for transportation.

Mr. Brimmeier called the two congressmen "political opportunists and hypocrites." He noted that both had voted for federal transportation funding programs that encourage initiatives to toll interstate highways. Mr. Peterson was a co-sponsor of the 1998 Transportation Equity Act 21, known as TEA-21.

"We're doing exactly what they and the federal government told us to do," the turnpike CEO said. "If they don't like our plan, what's their plan to raise transportation money for their constituents and their state?"

Mr. English called Mr. Brimmeier's argument "cartoonish" and a "canard." He said he enthusiastically voted for TEA-21, but opposed what he described as last-minute language about tolling.

"I made very clear at the time that I was opposed to tolling 80 and had spoken out against it,'' Mr. English said. "I think they should just concede that Peterson and I have always been opponents of tolling."

Mr. Brimmeier said he's confident that other U.S. House members and Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey "will do the right thing and cut this (amendment) out" of the transportation bill. "They know how important this is to Pennsylvania."

Mr. Peterson lamented the impact of creating an I-80 toll road, saying it would cost truckers at least $150 to cross the state one way.

In a joint news release announcing the amendment to stop the plan to toll I-80, Reps. English and Peterson said rural Pennsylvanians should not be responsible for solving statewide transportation problems.

And in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, they wrote: "Essentially, the new transportation plan would impose excessive tolls on economically challenged rural communities which are already paying their full share of gas taxes and other fees, and transfer that revenue to more prosperous suburban communities to fund transit programs that should be supported by the communities they serve."

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette examination of state transportation statistics shows the opposite to be true: Money collected from the densely populated Pittsburgh and Philadelphia urban areas generates the bulk of revenue that's spread statewide to pay for road, bridge and transit programs.

For example, Allegheny County, with 909,000, has the highest number of registered motor vehicles in the state. That also is 50 percent more than the 601,654 registered vehicles in Mercer, Venango, Clarion, Jefferson, Clearfield, Centre, Clinton and Lycoming counties combined, where I-80 passes through the 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts represented by Mr. English and Mr. Peterson.

The nearly $44 million that PennDOT collected last year from Allegheny County vehicle owners in registration fees for the state's Motor License Fund also was about 50 percent more than the total collected in all of those counties.

On the other hand, I-80 alone eats up 22 percent of all federal interstate maintenance money allocated to the state. That statewide total last year was $211.9 million.

When revenues generated by Allegheny County are combined with the five-county Philadelphia area, where transit is provided by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the urban areas are generating about 33 percent of all transportation money that is shared with the other 61 counties.

"They're paying the lion's share of the program, which is why I get frustrated with such parochialism," Mr. Brimmeier said. "Besides state taxes, people around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have been paying tolls for more than 60 years" to use the turnpike, including commuters who pay daily.

He and Mr. Biehler pointed out that the 20 counties that Reps. English and Peterson represent in all or part will benefit from increased highway funding, including resurfacing roads and starting some long-promised bridge repairs such as the Route 5 bridge over Walnut Creek in Fairview outside Erie.

Also, about two dozen public transit systems lie within their districts, including the State College-based Centre Area Transportation Authority, the third biggest system in the state, and the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority, with more than 2 million boardings a year. Soon, the state's Persons with Disabilities transportation program will be expanded to all rural counties.

"We've put together a plan that will generate $57 billion over the next 40 years, a plan that doesn't include raising the gas tax one cent," Mr. Brimmeier said. "It's a plan that fixes roads, bridges and transit for everyone for a long time, with a steady stream of money."

Because of the English-Peterson amendment, Mr. Rendell said he's considering returning to his earlier plan to lease the turnpike to an international investment firm.

"If they persist," he said in a recent statement, "the provincial actions of two congressmen could doom our citizens to decades of more riding on deteriorating roads and bridges and delay economic growth by driving away business investment."

The English-Peterson amendment would extend beyond Pennsylvania.

Their Free Highway Protection Act of 2007 would require all tolls to be paid to the federal government, thereby negating any state benefit from tolls.