The state is seeking permission from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to put tolls on I-80 to help pay for highway, bridge, and mass-transit projects around the state.

In December 2007, the FHWA turned down a similar state request to toll I-80, which runs for 311 miles through northern Pennsylvania. FHWA approval is needed because I-80 was largely built with federal funding as part of the free interstate highway system.

Gov. Rendell met recently with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to lobby for tolls on I-80. State officials hope the Obama administration will grant the permission that the Bush administration would not.

Revenue from I-80 tolls was a linchpin of the transportation-funding Act 44 passed by the legislature in 2007. The lawmakers assumed that higher tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and new tolls on I-80 would pay for the $900 million-a-year payments from the Turnpike Commission to PennDot for transportation projects. The Turnpike Commission for two years has been borrowing the money to make the payments, hoping to be paid back by those tolls.

Without tolls on I-80, the transportation funding from the Turnpike Commission will be cut in half, to $450 million a year, beginning next July. Among the biggest losers would be SEPTA.

Residents, businesses, and politicians in northern Pennsylvania have opposed tolls on I-80, contending they would cripple their economy. And they have vowed to continue their fight against the tolls even as state officials resume efforts to get approval for them.

Because the application was filed late yesterday, it was not immediately clear how the new application differed from the 2007 application that was rejected. Details are expected to be available today.

When the FHWA kicked back Pennsylvania's request to toll I-80 in 2007, federal officials said the state did not meet the requirement that tolls be used only for I-80 improvements.

And the officials said the state's application did not meet the requirements under a federal pilot program for tolls on interstates "for the purpose of reconstructing and rehabilitating interstate highway corridors that could not otherwise be adequately maintained or functionally improved without the collection of tolls."

The federal officials also questioned how the state could describe as "operating costs" the payments that would be made from I-80 tolls to PennDot to pay for transportation projects around the state.