Oklahoma's Fuel-Tax Hike Could be a Casualty of Katrina

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.

klahoma voters will vote Tuesday on whether to approve a 5-cent increase in the price of gasoline and an 8-cent rise for diesel, and supporters and opponents say the measure faces an uphill battle in the wake of record high fuel prices following Hurricane Katrina, the Associated Press reported.

Recent polls show about 75% of likely voters in the state plan to vote against the measure, AP said.

The referendum, was placed on the ballot through a petition last year when gasoline was more than $1 a gallon cheaper, would create a trust fund dedicated to maintaining and improving the state's highways and bridges.

Both sides agree that Oklahoma's roads and bridges need improvements and the Road Information Program, a national transportation research group, ranks the state's bridges as the worst in the nation because about a third of them are structurally deficient, AP reported.

Safety advocates say they went through the initiative process after trying and failing for years to secure adequate funding from the Legislature to fix the state's transportation infrastructure.

The increase, the first since 1987, would be phased in over four years and raise about $150 million a year for road and bridge repairs. Supporters have generated more than $2 million toward the initiative, while opponents have raised less than $150,000, AP reported.