
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991                   TAG: 9103200365
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ABINGDON                                   LENGTH: Short

FEDERAL ROAD FORMULA DRAWS VA. OPPOSITION

Proposed federal transportation legislation will shortchange Virginians at the same time the state tries to figure out where to cut its own funding for roads by 16 percent, Transportation Secretary John Milliken says.

Milliken said he has told Gov. Douglas Wilder that the most important transportation issue facing Virginia during his term in office concerns the Federal Surface Transportation Act.

State transportation officials examined the Bush administration's recently introduced legislation and don't like what they saw, Milliken said.

"The federal act is the channel through which your and my gasoline taxes come back to Virginia," he said Monday at a regional meeting on highway funding.

As proposed, he said, the act would return about 80 cents to Virginia for every $1 in gas taxes paid by Virginians into the federal transportation trust fund. Other states like Maryland and Georgia likewise would come up short, he said, while a number of western states would get more than they paid in.

- Associated Press

by CNB