WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Friday detailed its proposal to sell more than 300,000 acres of national forests and other public land to help pay for rural schools in 41 states.

The land sales, which range from less than an acre to more than 1,000 acres, could total more than $1 billion and would be the largest sale of forest land in decades.

Forest Service officials say the sales are needed to raise $800 million over the next five years to pay for schools and roads in rural counties hurt by logging cutbacks on federal land. The Bureau of Land Management also plans to sell federal lands to raise an estimated $250 million over five years.

Environmentalists and some Western lawmakers decried the plan, saying the short-term gains would be offset by the permanent loss of public lands. Congress would have to approve the land sales, and has rejected similar proposals in recent years.

A spokesman for the Wilderness Society called the plan a billion-dollar boondoggle to "privatize some of this country's most treasured public lands." The land sales are intended to offset other federal spending and make up for "tax cuts to the rich," said Dave Alberswerth, a public lands expert with the environmental group.

"This is not going to be politically acceptable to most people," Alberswerth said.

But Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, called the plan a good way to pay for important programs in a tight budget year. Rey said the parcels to be sold are isolated, expensive to manage or no longer meet the needs of the 193 million-acre national forest system. Fewer than 200,000 of the 309,000 acres identified Friday are likely to be sold, Rey said.

"These are not the crown jewels we are talking about," Rey said in an interview, adding that the public can judge for themselves once detailed maps outlining the proposed sales are posted on the Forest Service Web site. The site -- at http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/rural--schools.shtml -- included maps of just four national forests as of Friday, but Rey said a full list should be posted by the end of the month.

The public will have until late March to comment on the proposed sales.

"This is a reasonable proposal to take a small fraction of a percentage of national land which is the least necessary and use it for those in need and achieve an important overarching public purpose," Rey said.

The proposed sell-off would total less than half of 1 percent of the 193 million-acre national forest system. The money would be used for roads, schools and other needs in rural counties hurt by sharp declines in timber sales, in the wake of federal forest policy that restricts logging to protect endangered species such as the spotted owl.

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management said BLM land to be sold would be identified at the local level through land-management planning. The lands are typically part of a checkerboard pattern of small parcels surrounded by suburban or urban areas, Interior officials say, and have been identified as holding little natural, historic, cultural or energy value.

BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington said much of the land to be sold would be parcels near urban areas with high market value. In recent years, the government has sold parcels for tens of millions of dollars in Nevada, for example, she said.

"Lands formerly remote are now abutting metro areas. That is certainly the case in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah," she said.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that is precisely the reason the land should not be sold.

"Our hunters, anglers, campers and other recreational users benefit from -- and depend on -- access to public lands," Bingaman said. "In my view, selling public lands to pay down the deficit would be a shortsighted, ill-advised and irresponsible shift in federal land-management policy."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the plan "a terrible idea based on a misguided sense of priorities."

Not only is the administration proposing to sell off public lands to help finance the president's budget, Feinstein said, it also plans "to rachet down and then terminate an important program that has been the lifeblood for rural schools in California and many other states. I will do everything I can to defeat this effort."

Nearly 500 parcels totaling more than 85,000 acres in California are identified for possible sale.

The latest proposal follows a failed move last year to allow the sale of public lands for mining. Western senators had criticized the provision, as well as a plan by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., to sell off 15 national parks.

Associated Press Writer Jennifer Talhelm contributed to this story.

On the Net:

An explanation of the Forest Service plan, along with a list of 2,930 proposed parcels in 34 states, is at: http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/rural--schools.shtml