Environmental groups yesterday slammed a House Republican proposal to nearly halve the amount of federal funding to acquire new lands for conservation, recreation and species protection.

GOP appropriators yesterday released a list of 70 cuts they want to make in next week's continuing resolution (CR), which must be passed by March 4 to keep the government running until the end of the fiscal year in October.

While Interior agencies and the Forest Service generally appeared to escape with modest cuts, Republicans proposed slashing the Land and Water Conservation Fund by $348 million from the White House's fiscal 2011 request.

The fund is the federal government's main vehicle for acquiring new lands, consolidating parks, sheltering endangered species and assisting states in promoting recreation. The GOP proposal would set LWCF funding at about $272 million, down significantly from the roughly $480 million current annual funding and less than a third of the fund's authorized $900 million annual cap.

"These are major cuts that the American people will notice," said Alan Rowsome, director of conservation funding for the Wilderness Society.

Rowsome estimated that such cuts would jeopardize up to 100 land projects and open them to potential residential development that would eliminate hunting and fishing access and create barriers to migrating wildlife.

"They are investments in our future that will save money down the road," said Rowsome, adding that agencies can reduce spending on law enforcement and wildfire fighting by consolidating the checkerboard ownership patterns in parts of the West.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who announced the cuts, said they "are not low-hanging fruit."

"These cuts are real and will impact every district across the country -- including my own," Rogers said in a statement. "As I have often said, every dollar we cut has a constituency, an industry, an association, and individual citizens who will disagree with us. But with this CR, we will respond to the millions of Americans who have called on this Congress to rein in spending to help our economy grow and our businesses create jobs."

The House GOP proposal, if passed, may run into opposition from senators who have fought in the past to require full funding of LWCF. Those include Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who authored a bill in the last Congress that would provide permanent funding for LWCF and carried 25 co-sponsors, one of them Republican.

"He has always been a big champion of LWCF and still is," said Bingaman spokesman Bill Wicker, who said the chairman is refraining from responding directly to the House proposal.

"I'm sure this will be an issue that those members [of the Senate] continue to fight for," said Michael Degnan, Washington representative of the Sierra Club.

A spokesman for Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the Senate's top appropriator for the Interior Department and Forest Service, declined to comment until more details of the proposal are announced.

Reed, who was not a co-sponsor of Bingaman's bill, said last week in a statement that investments in clean air and clean water laws, parks and museums are important to communities and are proven economic generators.

The House GOP also recommended cutting the Forest Service budget by $38 million, National Park Service by $51 million and Fish and Wildlife Service by $72 million below President Obama's request.

Such reductions could force the layoff of agency staff and lessen visitor services and trails maintenance -- and in some cases may result in the closure of parks or refuges, Rowsome said.

Failure to fund the Forest Service's Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program -- which supports road and trail improvements, maintenance work and road removal projects -- would threaten drinking water supplies for 66 million people and could eliminate up to 2,500 jobs, the Wilderness Society found.

Rowsome said there will be very little time for the House and Senate to reconcile their funding bills, meaning Congress could turn to another temporary CR to fund the government through April. The House is expected to pass its CR by next Thursday, Rowsome said, with the Senate taking up the spending measure after the Presidents Day recess.