GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Gov. Ed Rendell said he knows high fuel costs are hitting Pennsylvanians hard. But while speaking in Greensburg on Thursday, he said the Keystone State is on the forefront of changing that.

Speaking to a group of seniors at the McKenna Center, Rendell said he's feeling the pain and the pump, too.

"People would literally come up to me on the street and grab my arm and say, 'Governor, you've got to do something about it. Suspend the state gas tax until the end of the year, and save us some money,'" said Rendell. "I said to the folks, 'If you drive, if you're the average driver, it's going to save you $43 between now and the end of the year, but it would cost us $600 million, the money that we use to repair our roads and our bridges.'"

Rendell said the best way to beat the rising prices is to produce an alternative. He said plans are already under way for an ethanol production facility in Madison, Westmoreland County, where a company called Coskata wants to turn garbage into gas.

"If we can produce our own sources of energy, then we can literally kiss foreign oil goodbye," said Rendell.

There are several dozen ethanol and biodiesel plants producing or being built in Pennsylvania already. And Rendell said he wants their products sold at every gas pump in the state by 2017.

Rendell said he's also concerned about rising electricity costs over the next three years, because the industry is likely to be deregulated. But Republicans say just the opposite will happen.

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