Energy Tax Under Study, Gore Says : Deficit: He insists a specific gas levy has not been discussed as new Administration weighs revenue sources.

Faced with worsening federal deficit projections, the new Administration is considering a “broad-based energy tax” but has not discussed a possible gasoline tax increase, Vice President-elect Al Gore said Sunday in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Gore also said that President-elect Bill Clinton and his foreign policy advisers are seriously discussing working toward a partial lifting of the U.N.-imposed arms embargo against the former states of Yugoslavia so that besieged Muslims could acquire defensive weapons against the Serbs.

In the hourlong interview, conducted Saturday night but broadcast on Sunday, Gore also said that it may take six to eight years to fully phase in comprehensive national health care reform, depending on the final elements of what will be a complex plan.

The interview was broadcast as Gore and Clinton, accompanied by their families and a huge entourage, rode in a ceremonial bus caravan from the Thomas Jefferson home near Charlottesville, Va., to the nation’s capital.

Gore disclosed the high-level discussions about an energy tax after disputing reports that the deficit projections have caused Clinton to consider a gas tax hike.

“That has not even been discussed as an option,” Gore said, adding: “I would be less than candid if I said that there was no discussion of any kind among the options that were being talked about that involved a broad-based energy tax. But no decision of that kind has been made whatsoever.”

Gore also said that the new Administration still intends to cut the White House staff by 25% and, through attrition, reduce the overall federal work force by 100,000 people. It also intends to direct department heads to produce 3% savings across the board and to pursue some tax changes for the middle class “in an emphasis on tax fairness,” he said.

On Bosnia, Gore said that among the many options being considered is one that “we’ve talked a lot about”--consulting with U.S. allies over a partial lifting of the U.N. arms embargo.

“Here is a besieged population, vastly outgunned by those who are coming in and oppressing them and the international community, by force of arms, is preventing them from acquiring even defensive weapons to defend themselves,” Gore said.

“A review of that stance by the world community is certainly one option that ought to be placed on the table. . . ,” he said. “The vast preponderance of the crimes, the overwhelming majority of them, have been committed against the citizens of Bosnia and especially the Muslim population. This was a diverse society that has now been ripped apart, and you know the stories of the atrocities. And we simply cannot allow that to continue.”