NEW JERSEY - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday he does not support raising gas taxes to support transportation, even though he conceded at a Senate hearing that the current highway trust fund is effectively bankrupt.

LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, told the Senate's surface transportation subcommittee that "with the economy we have today, it's not the time to be raising the gas tax."

He also said the gas-tax supported trust fund "is inadequate to do everything we want to do," and urged Congress to consider a range of funding options including public-private partnerships, tolls and even special federal bonds aimed at transportation.

He said the administration would send an outline of principles it wants Congress to consider as it begins writing a new multiyear transportation funding bill to replace the one that expires in September.

The process regularly sets up conflicts between urban states and rural states and lawmakers with different political philosophies, and this year is no different.

At the hearing, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., defended federal support for rural states and noted his is one of three states not served by Amtrak. Then Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, touted her bill to let "donor states" such as Texas - which pay more in gas tax than they get back in federal highway support - drop out of the trust fund system.