Gov. Mike Easley said he has no plans to roll back North Carolina’s motor fuel taxes to ease the pain at the pump.

Easley said North Carolina relies too heavily on the dollars generated for road and bridgework by the state’s 27.1-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel fuel to suspend it temporarily.

As an alternative, the governor joined other Democratic governors who are calling on the federal government to solve the problem of higher fuel prices.

“We’ve got to do something better than we’re doing now on energy in this country,” Easley told The Associated Press. “We want to see Washington take up this issue.”

Prices for light, sweet crude oil shot as high as $68 per barrel earlier this week in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange as fears grew that Hurricane Rita disrupted key oil facilities off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, disrupting supplies like Hurricane Katrina did less than a month ago.

That’s unwelcome news for truckers and other drivers in North Carolina who are paying around $2.80 per gallon for fuel.

Easley said a monthlong moratorium in North Carolina would cost $150 million, The AP reported. He said it would be an unwise move given that the state faces a backlog of highway projects and skyrocketing roadwork costs.