Saying business owners are willing to pay higher gasoline taxes, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday urged Congress to get moving on new transportation legislation.

Thomas J. Donahue led more than 100 business leaders from 28 states to Capitol Hill to oppose an 18-month delay in enactment of multiyear legislation to authorize road, bridge and transit improvements.

The Obama administration has proposed the delay, with support of some key Senate members, amid disagreement over how to fund the measure.

Mr. Donahue said the nation faces crumbling infrastructure and a looming transportation crisis. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which draws revenue from an 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax that hasn't changed since 1993, is nearly broke, and the current legislation authorizing transportation projects expires Sept. 30.

"While a lot of people would make noise about [a 10-cent gas tax increase], that would last about two days and we'd be back to building highways," he said on a conference call with reporters. "The American business community is saying we don't see this as a tax. This is a user fee."

He was joined by Steve Odland, chairman and CEO of Office Depot, which has 1,100 U.S. stores and makes a half-million deliveries per week. Mr. Odland served on a congressional study commission that last year recommended annual 5- to 8-cent gasoline tax increases, plus indexing to inflation, to replenish the Highway Trust Fund over the short term. The panel endorsed a long-term switch to a fee based on miles traveled.

He said the nation's transportation system, once considered "the gold standard," has "fallen into disrepair."

U.S. Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, last month unveiled a blueprint for the new transportation bill that would increase spending by 38 percent, to $450 billion over six years, and make sweeping reforms to transportation policy.

The blueprint did not address how the program would be financed.

The Obama administration has opposed a gas tax increase, and has been joined by some senators in seeking an 18-month extension of the current transportation law, known as SAFETEA-LU.

Mr. Donahue's group, which represents some 3 million businesses and organizations, is heading an advertising and lobbying campaign, with ads on buses and commuter trains and in magazines and on Web sites, and opinion columns in newspapers, calling for a new transportation bill.

"Let's not play these games of delay and dodge," Mr. Donahue said. "We need to get on with this."

U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said Congress should move ahead on the bill "as soon as possible."

"All across our country, and especially in Western Pennsylvania, we have roads and bridges that are in critical need of repair," he said. "Given this, I do not want to delay passing a bill that would put Americans to work building the 21st-century infrastructure our nation needs."