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An effort to pass a federal climate and energy bill has run into opposition from road builders and users who say it could hamper their efforts to pay for transportation projects.

Even before a final climate bill has been introduced, 27 associations signed onto urging Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman to drop the concept of using gas-tax money to pay for anything but transportation projects.

The federal gas tax puts 18.4 cents per gallon of gas sold into the federal Highway Trust Fund. That fund already fails to keep up with the need for transportation projects, requiring emergency transfers to stay solvent.

According to federal Department of Transportation estimates, it would take more than $30 billion more per year to just maintain the country’s existing transportation system, said Tony Dorsey, spokesman for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “To divert money from the Highway Trust Fund, used to pay for projects that are critically important right now, there is no wiggle room here to be moving money anywhere,” he said.

A group of organizations, including paving suppliers, trade unions and bicycling advocates, signed onto the letter. The Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations was among the signatories. That group’s vice president, Rex Burkholder, is also a councilor with regional elected government Metro. The federal Highway Trust Fund differs from state gas-tax money that can go toward only road projects, he said.

Federal money also pays for non-road transit projects, Burkholder said, and those projects suffer from the same deficit. “The Highway Trust Fund is underfunded and we’re struggling to maintain our infrastructure and keep transit going,” he said.

That said, Burkholder doesn’t want to see restrictions placed on federal money that could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.

“The key thing is that dollars should be flexible,” he said. “We want to have performance measures that do the things that accomplish the most.”

In the short term, that includes energy-saving building retrofits that quickly pay for themselves, Burkholder said. If longer-term policies were to create communities where people don’t need to drive as much, then the need to expand roadway systems would be reduced, for example.

“That’s the direction we’re going in this region,” he said. “What are the strategies that pay for themselves?”

The federal gas tax, as currently structured, may not be the best way to pay for transportation projects in the future, Dorsey said. But right now, it’s the best means available.

Two commissions studied the problem, with both recommending raising the gas tax immediately, Dorsey said. Eventually, a more stable source might be taxing vehicles per mile traveled.

“There’s no way around increasing the fuel tax,” Dorsey said. “That’s the only immediate option.”

Raising that tax, which has remained at its current level for more than a decade, will be difficult. If a climate bill increases the tax but dedicates the money raised to other uses, that will all but destroy the chances for a tax increase in a new transportation bill, he said.

“Any one gas tax is a major challenge,” Dorsey said. “Two is just monumental.”

Bicycling and pedestrian advocates who signed onto the letter also have an interest in reducing greenhouse gas pollution, said Caron Whitaker, campaign director for America Bikes. The coalition’s leaders pinned hopes on the new transportation bill.

“We want a transportation bill that embraces the concept of livable communities and transportation choices,” Whitaker said. “It’s looking at transit-oriented development, making walking and biking safer and making roads safer for all users to give people choices on how they get around.

“If (gas tax) funds are diverted to other causes, it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get a new transportation bill in the future.”