Gov. Butch Otter's press secretary, Jon Hanian, was circumspect after the House's defeat this morning of seven separate amendments to the gas tax bill, several of them designed to raise the amount closer to what Otter wants to fund roadwork. "We're obviously mindful of the difficulties. We saw some of this earlier on," Hanian said, referring to the House's defeat of the governor's 7-cent gas tax hike bill two weeks ago. "We're still committed, and the governor is not backing away from what he said. We have an audit that we have paid for, it's the Legislature's own audit," and it shows "we've got about a $300 million need."

Hanian said, "We're still hopeful that we can impress upon those lawmakers that are willing to listen that this is a problem that won't go away. We remain engaged." Hanian said Otter still wants to "get some level of funding to begin significantly address the problems that have been identified."

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