Missouri Highway and Transportation Commissioner John Oliver said Sunday that passage of a 6-cent state gasoline tax would be a "bonanza" for Southeast Missouri.

The Cape Girardeau attorney said Missouri will best be able to take advantage of a new federal highway bill if voters approve the 6-cent increase. The tax would be increased in two-cent steps over a five-year period.

Missouri's gasoline tax now is 11 cents a gallon and is among the lowest in the nation. The national average state fuel tax is 17.5 cents per gallon.

Oliver said the tax increase would allow the state to get the most federal highway money possible. He said the money would allow the highway commission to commit to a 15-year program of road and bridge projects that will go unfunded without the additional money.

"The commission approved in concept and principal a 15-year plan of projects that, frankly, will be a real bonanza for Southeast Missouri," he said. "But it's entirely dependent on the 6 cents."

The commission decided Friday to urge the Missouri General Assembly to put the proposal on an election ballot.

Some of the area road projects in the 15-year plan include extension of Nash Road from Interstate 55 to the Southeast Missouri Port on the border of Cape Girardeau and Scott City, widening and improvements to Highway 412 in the Bootheel, Highways 67, 63 and 25, and an east-west connection between Cape Girardeau and Jefferson City.

"Also, all the one-lane bridges on state roads would be eliminated," Oliver said.

With the tax increase, Missouri would receive about $430 million a year in federal funds and would "match" the federal funds with about $200 million. Previously, the state got about $250 million a year, and its match was about $100 million.

Oliver said the commission will meet today with key state legislators to discuss final details of the tax-increase plan and how best the state can benefit from the new federal highway bill.

"This new federal program has so many new categories that it's really hard to anticipate until the regulations are out exactly what we can do," Oliver said.

"But I think Missouri can be at the forefront in the sense we can have our hands in the federal till and actually be in an accelerated construction phase by this summer."

Oliver said that because voters approved Proposition A years ago, there already are approved projects that have been shelved because of a lack of money.

Although all the Proposition A projects eventually will be completed, Oliver said the state now is responsible for a greater percentage of the costs of such projects. And without more revenue, new projects are "severely limited," he said.

According to Highway and Transportation Department Chief Engineer Wayne Muri, the 15-year plan includes construction of about 1,700 miles of four-lane highway, which would provide a four-lane highway for every city with more than 5,000 people.

It also would eliminate one-way restrictions on 500 state highway bridges, replace or repair 900 other bridges and extend four-lane highways to all major lakes.

Oliver said Missouri counties and municipalities now have to replace deficient bridges with new ones that are subject to strict, federal safety standards.

The higher standards are unnecessarily applied to little-travelled roads, he said, which drives up construction costs and often delays bridge replacements.

Oliver conceded the commission might find it difficult to persuade legislators to support the tax hike during an election year.

But, he said, the commission's track record is its best biggest selling point for the new program and tax hike.

"The Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission has a history of doing what it says it's going to do," Oliver said. "We're right on time and schedule with all the Prop. A projects.

"I'm also hopeful everyone will recognize that if we don't have this gas tax, this money will go back to the federal government and go back to building roads on the east and west coasts."

Oliver said motorists in the state ought to support the proposed tax increase. He said the price per gallon of gasoline in Missouri is about 28 cents below the national average, partly because the state has one of the lowest gas taxes in the country.

"We have the fourth or fifth lowest gas tax, and even with another 6 cents, we'll be below our neighbors," he said. "If Arkansas had the guts to raise it, we surely ought to have the guts to raise it."