A Bush administration proposal to sell 300,000 acres of national forest land -- a quarter of it in California -- to raise money for rural counties has been shelved amid widespread opposition.
Congress refused to move the legislation this summer, and groups that typically ally themselves with the president, such as the National Rifle Assn., came out against the measure, spelling its doom in this congressional session.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, the proposal's chief architect, acknowledged as much last month when he agreed to find other funding for the program, which finances rural schools and roads.
"That's the most likely outcome for this year," Rey said this week. Asked if the administration would attempt to revive the sales proposal next year, he said, "I don't think we know that."
If it does, the reception will probably remain chilly.
"They would be foolish to do so," said Terry Riley, vice president of policy for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a national hunting and fishing coalition. "We're watching very closely and would not expect them to do something like this again."
Also dead is an accompanying administration proposal to require the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the federal government's largest landowner, to dramatically boost its land sales to raise $350 million over the next decade.
The demise of the proposals marks the second recent defeat for efforts to sell substantial public holdings.
Last year a House committee under the leadership of Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) drafted budget language that would have forced the federal government to sell potentially millions of acres next to mining claims that stud Western public lands. That died after sports groups and westerners complained.
"People love their public lands -- bottom line," said Dan Whiting, spokesman for Republican Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho.
Craig and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon are authors of the rural county program that would have collected $800 million in proceeds from the forest sales. But neither wound up supporting the Bush plan.
"It wasn't a serious proposal. It had no hope of passage," said Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff.
To prod the administration to look for other funding sources, Wyden put a hold on some of the administration's nominees for Interior and Agriculture posts. He lifted them in early August when Rey agreed to a one-year extension of as much as $401 million for the schools program, to be funded with other revenue.
