House Support for Gas Tax Hike Fades : Legislation: Vote on transportation bill is delayed until September. Backing for 5-cent-a-gallon increase collapses over move to divert proceeds.

Prospects for passage of a controversial nickel-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax sank Friday as Congress prepared to depart on a monthlong recess without taking action on a $153.5-billion transportation measure that the new levy would help finance.

Although the tax increase was pushed strongly by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), a last-minute move to divert some of the proceeds to the Treasury, instead of using all of the money for highway and transit projects, caused widespread defections among rank-and-file lawmakers.

As many as 130 of the 267 House Democrats were ready to break ranks over the diversion of the gas tax money and vote against the bill, House Republicans were told at a party caucus Friday morning.

A majority of the 166 House Republicans were said to oppose the new tax even before the diversion issue surfaced; and, after the issue arose, many others said that they would withdraw their support.

The reaction of one senior California Republican, Rep. Ron Packard of Carlsbad, was typical. “My support for the . . . gas tax was strictly based on the full 5 cents being used for road-building and transportation,” he said. “Not one cent of it was to go for any other purpose.”

The defections, stemming largely from action taken Wednesday night by the House Ways and Means Committee, prompted House leaders to abandon plans to bring the transportation bill to the House floor for a vote Friday. Instead, the leaders decided to put off consideration of the legislation until mid-September.

“The sand was starting to wash away under people’s feet because of the confusion (over) what was happening,” said another Californian, Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), who is one of the principal authors of the five-year transportation bill.

Growing criticism of the $6.8 billion in specially earmarked “pork barrel” projects for members’ home districts also contributed to the erosion of support, congressional aides said.

The Bush Administration has vowed to veto any transportation measure that includes an increase in the gasoline tax. The Senate has passed a $123-billion highway and transit measure that includes no tax hike.

Privately, one key House Republican said that chances are now only “30% to 40%” that House leaders will return in September with a transportation bill that includes an increase in the gasoline tax.

The House bill would replace the current system, largely put in place 35 years ago, for parceling out to the states billions of dollars in federal aid for highways, bridges, bus lines and rail systems.

To help pay for the $153.5-billion program, the Public Works Committee decided that it needed to raise the gasoline tax to 19 cents a gallon, beginning next January. The additional nickel would raise between $30 billion and $33 billion over the life of the five-year measure, aides estimate.

But the plan ran into trouble Wednesday night when the Ways and Means Committee decided to put only 75% of the money from the new gasoline tax into the highway trust fund for financing transportation improvements. The other 25%, the committee decided, should be paid into the Treasury’s general fund, to compensate for the loss of corporate income tax revenues resulting from increased deductions for gasoline taxes.