INDIANAPOLIS | A taxing question confronts Northwest Indiana lawmakers as they return to the Statehouse this week for a one-day dress rehearsal of next year's legislative session.

Should they press ahead with a $30 million-a-year tax on Lake and Porter County residents to pay for South Shore commuter rail expansion, or back off until the General Assembly does something to get soaring property taxes under control?

The region's legislative delegation plans to huddle on the subject Tuesday, before the General Assembly is gavelled in for its annual organization day.

Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was first out of the gate last month with a comprehensive tax relief plan, promised he won't stand in the way if local lawmakers decide to push the $1 billion South Shore expansion when the legislative session hits full steam.

"I think that's entirely up to the delegations from that area," Daniels said Friday. "I think that, since what's being proposed wouldn't cost anybody outside the region a penny, we ought to at least be open to voices up there."

But, with voters railing against the taxes already on the books, it won't be easy to pitch a mass transit hike.

"It will be extremely tough to get people supportive of an additional tax," said state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary. "People are just not in that mode, or in that mind set."

The South Shore project, which would extend service south to Lowell and east to Valparaiso, needs $350 million in local support. Region lawmakers are considering a $50 annual vehicle registration fee, as well as local income or gas taxes, but they haven't settled on a solution.

"We need to see where this taxation thing is going overall," said state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso.

The legislative session will start in earnest in early January. Organization day typically is a perfunctory event marked by vision speeches and little else, but lawmakers have some work to do Tuesday.

After homeowners in Indianapolis and other pockets of the state received tax bills roughly a third larger this summer, Daniels twice pushed back -- to Dec. 31 -- an August deadline for counties to impose income taxes dedicated to property tax relief. The governor granted a similar extension for homeowners to apply for 2008 tax breaks, and he proclaimed property owners don't need appraisals to appeal their tax assessments.

Some of those administrative actions were challenged in a lawsuit the Indiana Tax Court recently dismissed on procedural grounds. So lawmakers will spend Tuesday seeking to "ratify" Daniels' moves by considering legislation to cement the changes in state law.

"I think it'll be pretty uniformly supported," said state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso. "Let's clear up what needs to be cleared up and get about the business of solving of this horrendous (tax) problem we're facing right now."

House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, has scheduled a Dec. 3 Ways and Means Committee hearing on the property tax relief plan Daniels presented in late October. The House will lump the plan into one piece of legislation, while Senate leaders plan separate hearings on the facets of the proposal.