The Obama administration today blasted a pair of House GOP proposals to help rural Western counties pay for schools, roads and emergency services.

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management panned proposals by Natural Resources Committee leaders to significantly boost timber harvests on public lands and give states up to 30 million acres of federal lands to help fund schools.

Both proposals would increase the federal deficit, eviscerate environmental protections and reverse a long-standing policy of retaining public lands for multiple uses including recreation and habitat preservation, the administration said.

Today's hearing comes as lawmakers grapple over ways to reauthorize or replace the Secure Rural Schools program, which pays hundreds of millions of dollars annually to counties with large portions of nontaxable federal lands to help fund schools, roads, emergency services and forest restoration.

The program -- which was established about a decade ago to replace declining timber revenues as environmental protections for species like the northern spotted owl were tightened -- expires at the end of the month.

A draft committee proposal would require the Forest Service to sell enough timber and other resources to match counties' historic forest receipts. Environmental reviews would be exempt from existing laws and lawsuits.

"Restoring active management of our national forests, as this draft proposal does, would provide a stable revenue stream for counties and schools," said committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). "It would create new jobs, strengthen rural economies, promote healthier forests, reduce the risk of wildfires and decrease our reliance on foreign countries for timber and related products."

A separate bill -- H.R. 2852 by National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) -- would allow Western states to select 5 percent of BLM and Forest Service lands in their state, which could total up to 30 million acres, according to the Interior Department.

Bishop said the bill would make good on promises the federal government made to counties in their respective founding acts. He characterized the federal government as an "absentee landowner" with "a maintenance backlog that would make your head spin," referring to the $20 billion in estimated repairs needed to Interior infrastructure.

But the Obama administration, environmental groups and a Montana-based research firm today warned that the bills are unsustainable, both environmentally and economically.

Harris Sherman, undersecretary of natural resources and environment for the Agriculture Department, said the administration would rather the SRS program be extended for an additional five years in order to provide time for it to be phased out. The Forest Service also requested a separate appropriation for the program in its 2012 budget.

"The Forest Service is working hard to turn the corner" and reverse a 15- to 20-year decline in timber harvests on national forests, Sherman said. He added that the agency is developing new approaches to shorten environmental reviews and streamline the administrative process. Appeals of agency timber decisions are decreasing significantly, he said.

But Sherman, like Interior, said the administration is "strongly opposed" to both bills.

Interior had stronger words, warning that Bishop's bill "would increase the federal budget deficit by depriving U.S. taxpayers of current revenues, and would leave to each state the decision to close off access, sell, or lease lands conveyed to the state."

"This legislation is fiscally and environmentally irresponsible and would irrevocably change America and the American West," the agency said in a written statement.

The bills drew support from a timber company executive, a county commissioner and a Utah state senator.

"Counties are united in their desire to move away from direct annual SRS payments in exchange for sustainable economies based on management of our federal lands," said Ron Walter, commissioner for Chelan County, Wash.

He added that his county's forests are in a state of disrepair and are vulnerable to disease, infestation and catastrophic wildfires.

Hastings said Washington state, which manages about one-fourth the amount of forestlands that the Forest Service manages, produces seven times as much timber for local governments, universities and state school construction.

"You're not telling me why Washington state is doing so much more," he told Andy Stahl, executive director of the group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

Stahl, who testified in opposition to the committee bill, said the Forest Service has a different objective in choosing which trees to cut. Boosting timber sales when the price of timber declines, as the bill would do, is the exact opposite of fundamental principles of economics, he said.

The committee draft might struggle to garner bipartisan support. It will almost certainly stall in the Senate, given that it is strongly opposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who leads the chamber's subcommittee in charge of public lands.

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.) said he is developing a proposal that would create both a timber trust and a conservation trust and would focus on the cutting of small-diameter trees. Environmental laws would not be lifted.

DeFazio said he is skeptical of the committee proposal, arguing, like the Forest Service and Stahl, that it would cost more money for the federal government to prepare and administer timber sales than the projects would generate in revenue.

"If you look at the Republicans' own budget rules, it doesn't make any sense," he said in an interview, adding that the committee draft would score heavily if analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office. "It's got a lot of hurdles ahead."

But DeFazio said the danger of expiring funds is real for the counties he represents.

"I have counties that are going to go out of existence," he said. "There are some that are larger than many states in the East that will have no law enforcement ... maybe close their jails.

"We have a very serious problem, and I'm trying to deal with it in a very serious way," he said. "Republicans have their vision, I have my vision, and hopefully, we can get something done."

Headwaters Economics, a Bozeman, Mont.-based research firm that conducts independent research and commissioned works for land management agencies and conservation groups, yesterday released an analysis of the bill finding that timber cuts would have to increase dramatically to produce the size of revenues envisioned in the draft bill.

Based on current timber prices, counties would need to cut 14.8 billion to 42.8 billion board feet annually to meet the minimum revenue targets. Preparing and administering the sales would cost taxpayers $1.8 billion to $5.9 billion annually above current SRS appropriations, the group said.

"The cost of implementing the County Revenue Act, the significant re-write of federal law it requires, and the dramatic shift in payments from county to county raises the question of whether this proposal is the most practical use of public dollars and public land resources to support rural America," its analysis states. "Another option is to re-invest in current SRS appropriations and boost existing and proven stewardship and restoration funding and authorities to create jobs and support rural communities today."