HARRISBURG -- A campaign by state officials to place first-ever tolls on Interstate 80 has taken a major step forward.

Democrats in the U.S. House, working with Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, late Thursday removed an amendment to a federal transportation bill that would have blocked the state from putting up to 10 toll booths on the 311-mile highway that crosses northern Pennsylvania from New Jersey to Ohio.

The tolling of I-80 is a key element of Act 44, passed by the Legislature in July and signed by Gov. Ed Rendell. It will generate about $950 million a year for at least 10 years, and more after that, to be used to repair state roads and bridges and bail out struggling mass transit agencies, including the Allegheny County Port Authority. Revenue from I-80 tolls would be combined with increasing Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls by 25 percent starting in 2009.

The I-80 tolls won't take effect until 2011 -- even if they are approved by the Federal Highway Administration, a step that is by no means automatic.

Two Republicans from northwest Pennsylvania, U.S. Reps. John Peterson and Phil English, who strongly oppose tolls on I-80, pulled a surprise parliamentary maneuver in July, inserting language in a federal transportation bill to prevent such tolls. Some Democratic congressmen vowed to get rid of that language, and late Thursday they were successful.

Mr. Peterson and Mr. English were angry at the turnabout.

"The fix is in," charged Mr. English. "House Democrats, with the speaker's blessing, and without opportunity for a floor vote, have reversed the decision of the House from a few months ago, leaving I-80 open for the Harrisburg bureaucrats to toll. If House Republicans were in the majority, this would have never seen the light of day."

Mr. Peterson charged that U.S. House Democrats and Mr. Specter were acting "in lockstep with marching orders from Gov. Ed Rendell" to remove the anti-tolling amendment.

Rendell aide Chuck Ardo was happy about the removal of the anti-toll language, but he denied the governor has the power to tell congressmen what to do.

Mr. Ardo said that while the governor "expresses his opinion to the congressional delegation, he can't give our independent-thinking members of Congress any kind of orders."

Removing the Peterson-English language from the federal bill, Mr. Ardo said, "eliminates a bump in the road toward a critical transportation funding plan."

Mr. Rendell's preferred plan for raising transportation funds is to lease the turnpike to a private company for 99 years. He is still pursuing that idea, but it hasn't gotten much support in the state Legislature.

The two congressmen have claimed that charging motorists and truckers tolls for using the now-free I-80 will hurt the economy of counties in northern Pennsylvania. It will increase companies' transportation costs and force large semis onto county two-lane roads to avoid the tolls, thus causing safety problems, critics say.

Two Clarion County economic development specialists, Brad Ehrhart and Maria Kirby, were upset, saying tolls on I-80 will cripple the manufactured housing industry in their area by increasing companies' transportation costs. Their comments echoed comments at a hearing on the proposal earlier this week in Clarion.

Both officials vowed to contact the Federal Highway Administration and urge it not to approve I-80 tolls.

They and other critics of Act 44 complained that the Legislature held no public hearings on the proposal before enacting the law in July. "It was like the secret legislative pay raise in July 2005," Mr. Ehrhart said.

State Rep. Scott Hutchinson, R-Venango, has introduced a bill to repeal Act 44, but its chances seem doubtful. An alternative to tolling I-80 is to raise the state's gasoline tax, and that idea has no support at all.

Notwithstanding the congressional action late Thursday, the Federal Highway Administration recently told Pennsylvania transportation officials that the tolling of I-80 is by no means a done deal.

"FHWA has not granted Pennsylvania the authority to toll I-80," FHWA chief counsel James D. Ray told Turnpike Director Joseph Brimmeier and PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler on Oct. 17.

Mr. Ray said that his agency has received the state's formal application to toll I-80, but much remains to be done.

"We will conduct a thorough analysis of the application's merits ... [to] determine if the selection of I-80 in Pennsylvania for one of three nationwide tolling pilot authorities is appropriate," he said.

Virginia applied in 2003 for federal permission to toll some lanes of I-81, and Missouri applied in 2005 to toll some lanes of I-70, but neither has been approved yet, so Pennsylvania also may have to wait.