HARRISBURG -- Pressure, both political and financial, is building on the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to ask the federal government again for permission to put first-time tolls on Interstate 80.

Turnpike officials will soon meet with Federal Highway Administration officials to discuss resubmitting the tolling application, Commission Chairman Allen Biehler and Vice Chairman Tim Carson told a House committee yesterday.

While no firm decision on resubmittal has been made, "The state's tolling application today remains viable" with federal officials, Mr. Carson told the House Democratic Policy Committee.

The Federal Highway Administration last fall rejected the state's initial application.

Rep. Mike Sturla of Lancaster, the committee chairman, said he supports putting tolls on I-80. Also, Rep. John Pallone, D-Westmoreland, has introduced a resolution in the House to urge the Turnpike Commission to resubmit the application.

Mr. Biehler said that tolls on I-80 were half of a 2007 revenue-raising plan called Act 44. The other half was increasing turnpike tolls by 25 percent, which happened Jan. 4.

Under Act 44, the turnpike agreed to sell $2.5 billion in bonds between mid-2007 and mid-2010 and give the money to PennDOT for road and bridge repairs and public transit systems around the state.

But if there aren't any tolls on I-80 by July 2010, the amount available for transportation improvements will drop to $450 million a year. That would sharply curtail improvements to roads, bridges and transit, Mr. Biehler said. With the I-80 tolls in place, about $950 million a year would be available.

Turnpike officials said their meetings with federal highway officials have been delayed because of the change in federal administrations, and due to delays in the Obama administration filling spots at the FHWA. Also, federal officials have had to spend much time on the federal stimulus program.

But in June there should be meetings between the turnpike officials and the federal agency on the I-80 tolling issue.

"As we await the suitable time to revisit the application (with federal officials), we have an opportunity to develop a more unified political consensus here in Pennsylvania regarding potential resubmission," Mr. Carson said.

Congressmen and state legislators from northern Pennsylvania, where I-80 travels 311 miles from west to east, are unified against the tolls, saying they would hurt commerce in that area. But many legislators from other parts of the state, especially the areas where the turnpike traverses, support the I-80 tolls.

"We are giving out-of-state traffic a free ride through Pennsylvania," said Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Philadelphia.

The previous effort to toll I-80 was strongly opposed by former U.S. Rep. John Peterson, a Republican whose northcentral Pennsylvania district included several counties through which I-80 travels. His successor, Rep. Glenn Thompson, is picking up the fight.

He said he's trying to end a federal pilot project under which federally funded highways in three states could be turned into toll roads. Pennsylvania wants to be one of those pilot projects.

"It will be interesting to see how they tweak the application, but it still doesn't meet the intent of the law,'' Mr. Thompson said. For one thing, all toll money should be used to maintain and upgrade I-80, but the turnpike commission wants to use some of the toll money for other state roads and for transit, he said.

Also, tolls "will damage the local economy'' in towns along I-80. "To put a toll on the road will increase shipping and commerce costs for manufacturing and retail, and why would we do that when the economy is struggling?'' he said.

If federal officials again reject I-80 tolls, another revenue-raising idea is a 10-cent-per-gallon hike in the state's 31-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax, which would raise another $600 million per year, or shifting $500 million from the Motor License Fund that now goes for state police over for road and bridge improvements. But doing the latter would require some other tax to be increased to pay for state police.