There’s a debate over transportation funding going on in Pennsylvania.

Corbett’s plan rests on one key proposal from a transportation funding advisory commission he put together at the start of his term: lifting a cap built into a longstanding tax on fuel at the wholesale level.

Removing that lid on the so-called oil company tax in the three steps that Corbett proposes over the next five years would generate nearly $2 billion in new funds annually by 2018, when the cap would be totally eliminated. That’s based on current pricing levels.

“It is time for oil and gas companies to pay their fair share of the cost of the infrastructure supporting their industry,” Corbett said in his budget address.

I’m not convinced about Corbett’s newfound evangelism, especially when fracking operators pay such a low tax.

It got the attention of the purity squad, however:

Americans for Tax Reform, the Washington-based group led by antitax leader Grover Norquist that circulated the pledge among members of Congress and state legislatures, issued its decree Wednesday.

“It is a tax,” said spokesman Patrick Gleason.

Unfortunately, even with $2 Billion dollars more in revenue, the state is probably going to let the $6 Million subsidy to the Pittsburgh-Philadelpha rail line wither on the vine.

The great mystery is how much of that cost will be passed onto the consumer.

The plan, as proposed, does not contain any mechanism to prohibit that.

And when the funding commission released its 2011 report, the going estimate was that it could cost as much as 20 cents per gallon of gas, if distributors and retailers passed that entire tab onto motorists.

Oh hey. If you listen to the arguments the state is making, they’re blaming fuel efficient cars for their funding woes, an argument also used in Virginia.