A more than $4 billion, six-year transportation funding package signed into law late last week by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley relies heavily on increased taxes on diesel and gasoline.

On July 1 a 1% tax will be levied at the wholesale level, later increasing to 3%. Also the current Maryland taxes of just over 24 cents on diesel and 23.5 cents on gasoline, which have not changed in a little more than 20 years, will be indexed to inflation.

All these hikes combined are expected to increase taxes on fuel by about 16 cents per gallon when fully implemented in 2017. If Congress fails to pass legislation that’s signed into law allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases, fuel taxes will increase even more in the Old Line State.

Earlier the Maryland Motor Truck association warned against such steep increases saying it would result in the state having some of the highest fuel taxes in the nation.

In signing the bill O’Malley said, “This historic transportation bill allows us to move forward with the first new major transportation projects in more than eight years and get our construction industry back to work.”