RICHMOND - The Virginia General Assembly passed an expansive transportation bill last week, replacing the 17.5 cents-per-gallon gasoline tax with a new 3.5% wholesale tax on gas and 6% on diesel that is tied to economic growth and inflation, the Washington Post reports.

The Senate??s approval of the plan, on the last day of the legislature??s 46-day gathering, "dramatically overhauls the way Virginians will pay for roads, highways and mass transit," the Post wrote, a victory for Governor Robert McDonnell. To pass the measure, Democrats also won a concession from McDonnell on the Affordable Care Act??s planned expansion of Medicaid for the poor and elderly, a compromise that helped ensure passage of the $3.5 billion transportation measure.

"This isn??t any bill, this is the only bill, and we did not reach this decision lightly without hundreds of hours of anguish and numbers-crunching," said Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., one of the transportation plan??s final negotiators. "It is the only solution we could come up with."

Supporters of the gas tax plan said it could cost motorists as much as $15 more a month in fuel. Other major elements of the bill include increasing the sales tax on nonfood merchandise from 5% to 5.3% and increasing the sales tax to 6% in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, requiring those funds to be spent only on transportation projects in those regions.

Supporters of the bill said it would raise about $880 million a year including new revenue for mass transit, while opponents criticized taxing different parts of the state at different rates or doubling the registration fee on electric cars to $100 and applying it to alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles, too.

The Senate passed the compromise by a vote of 25 to 15, and the House passed the bill last Friday 60 to 40. The bill now goes to the governor.

"This is a historic day in Virginia," McDonnell said in a written statement. "We have worked together across party lines to find common ground and pass the first sustainable long-term transportation funding plan in 27 years. There is a 'Virginia Way?? of cooperation and problem solving, and we saw it work again today in Richmond."

Mike O??Connor, president and CEO of the Virginia Petroleum, Convenience and Grocery Association, said dealers were wary of the new tax structure:

"Most reports emphasize that elimination of the cents per gallon rate and replacing it with a wholesale tax of 3.5%. That is only a small part of what this bill will do. It expands the 2.1% additional tax on the retail price of gasoline, which today only exists in Northern Virginia to all of Hampton Roads, which assures higher gas taxes in our two most populous areas. Further the law provides that the wholesale tax will increase 45% in 2015 if the Congress fails to passed so called Internet equity legislation," he told NACS Daily.