BOISE -- Idaho fuel tax revenue declined for the first time in six years, as drivers faced with $4 per gallon gasoline shunned their cars and as the state's fuel distributors increasingly blended their gasoline with tax-exempt ethanol.

The $5 million drop to $229.6 million in fiscal year 2008 comes at an inopportune moment: Gov. Butch Otter is trying to raise additional cash to fill a $240 million transportation funding shortfall.

Drivers are increasingly looking for options to reduce consumption as gas prices increase -- a trend some say has encroached deep into Idaho's four-wheel-drive-loving agricultural heartland where gigantic pickups have long been a mainstay.

Suzanne Schaefer, a lobbyist for the Idaho Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, "I even spotted a hybrid in Soda Springs. That's not natural."