HELENA - A leading Montana Republican legislative leader said Tuesday if lawmakers are called into special session this year, they should temporarily suspend state motor-fuel taxes to give consumers a break at the gasoline pump.

"The people of Montana are hurting from the high price of gasoline," said Rep. Roy Brown of Billings, the House Republican leader. "The state is getting a huge windfall from oil-and-gas tax revenue, yet they're not passing any of that on to the consumer."

But the Schweitzer administration, top legislative Democrats and highway contractors universally denounced the idea, saying it has numerous problems including the potential to drain the state treasury and hurt the state's multimillion-dollar highway construction program.

State motor-fuel taxes, which generate about $200 million a year, are earmarked for specific uses, mostly highway construction. They also serve as matching funds to acquire another $300 million a year in federal highway construction money.

"There may be some good ideas that we could look at in terms of dealing with energy costs and consumers' concerns, but I don't think this (one) is a very good option," said Rep. Dave Wanzenried, the state House Democratic leader from Missoula.

The Montana Legislature may meet in special session this December in Helena, to deal with a $1.2 billion potential shortfall in public-employee pension funds and recast the state's school-funding system.

Brown wrote a letter to Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer late last week, asking him to expand the special session to include temporary suspension of the state's 27-cents-per-gallon tax on motor fuels.

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., first suggested the idea three weeks ago, as a way to help offset rising gasoline and diesel fuel prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Prices at the pump in Montana climbed anywhere from 30 cents to 50 cents per gallon the first week of September.

Brown said suspension of the tax could be tied to oil prices, which have been at record highs. If those prices receded and the retail price of gasoline went down accordingly, state motor-fuel taxes would be reinstated, he said.

Money from the state treasury, which has a surplus estimated as much as $300 million, would be transferred to highway construction accounts to offset revenue losses from the motor-fuel tax suspension, Brown said.

High oil prices also have led to increased petroleum drilling in Montana, leading to millions of dollars in extra, unexpected production tax revenue for the state. That money can help cover the revenue losses from suspending the motor-fuel taxes, he said.

"I think this is taxpayer-gouging when we continue to reap huge benefits from the oil-and-gas taxes in state coffers without using anything to offset what our average citizens and consumers are having to pay at the pump," said Brown, a petroleum engineer and former partner in an oil production company.

Wanzenried and others, however, said the numbers in Brown's math don't come close to adding up.

Tax revenue into the state treasury was about $130 million higher than expected as of June 30, he said, and only $4.4 million of those extra funds came from oil-and-gas production taxes. Legislative staffers confirmed those numbers Tuesday.

Suspending the motor-fuel tax would cost $200 million a year and would quickly erase any extra money from oil-and-gas production taxes, as well as other extra revenue, he said.

On Tuesday, the Montana Contractors Association began sending letters to every state legislator, urging them to reject any proposals to "tamper with the state fuel taxes as an attempt to provide relief for high fuel prices."

Cary Hegreberg, executive director of the association, said the group shares the same worries outlined by Wanzenried.

The proposal to suspend fuel taxes "just seems to be kind of a knee-jerk reaction to do something that could have some really nasty, long-term impacts," he said. "We're just not convinced that it would be short-termed, or that it would have the intended effect."

David Ewer, the governor's budget director, said maintaining a good highway system is "fundamental to a healthy economy" and that suspending state fuel taxes, even temporarily, "is inappropriate."

"It is not sustainable, and, frankly, using the resources of the state of Montana to subsidize lower gasoline prices would quickly exhaust the state's resources," he said.

He noted that Gov. Schweitzer has joined several other governors in calling for an investigation of fuel prices, saying oil companies may be artificially raising fuel taxes.