HARRISBURG -- A spokesman for oil companies in Pennsylvania today assailed Gov. Ed Rendell's call for an 8 percent tax on the gross profits of oil companies.

Rolf Hanson claimed the idea has been shown in the past to be illegal and a violation of federal rules on interstate commerce. He added that if it were enacted, it would financially hurt many small oil companies in the state and could cause them to lay off workers.

"He's just plugging an idea he first proposed in early 2007," said Mr. Hanson, executive director of the Harrisburg-based Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania. "It wasn't palatable to legislators back then and it won't be any more attractive now."

Mr. Rendell proposed the tax on Monday as one method to raise $1 billion for mass transit and road and bridge repairs.

Mr. Hanson criticized the governor's intention to prevent oil companies from passing along their higher costs to consumers in the form of higher gasoline prices, which he said could rise by 8 or 9 cents per gallon with an 8 percent profits tax.

Mr. Rendell contends it would be legal for the state to require oil companies to simply absorb the tax and not pass it on to consumers, but Mr. Hanson said he thinks such a provision could be challenged successfully in court.

He said no state has yet enacted such an oil company profits tax for one good reason: It violates the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. constitution. If by some chance a court did permit Mr. Rendell to bar oil companies from increasing gasoline costs to people in Pennsylvania, the companies simply would raise the gas prices for drivers in other states, Mr. Hanson said, thus interfering with interstate commerce.

He said that more than 300 oil companies, including many small distributors and drillers, would have to pay this new tax and it would erase the small profits they're making now.

He noted that Mr. Rendell first proposed such an oil company profits tax in 2007, along with leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator, as ways to generate at least $1 billion in revenue for fixing roads, bridges and transit.

The General Assembly rejected both ideas, Mr. Hanson recalled, and instead enacted Act 44 in July 2007, which increased the turnpike tolls and proposed tolls be put on Interstate 80.

But because the federal government rejected the I-80 tolls, the state is $472 million a year short on road/bridge/transit funds and Mr. Rendell is trying to come up with alternate ideas.

On Monday he proposed dusting off the oil profits tax idea and raising fees for vehicle registration, drivers licenses and other things.

But legislators aren't scheduled to return to the Capitol until mid-September, and already many of them say they're reluctant to increase costs for constituents, especially before the Nov. 2 election.

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