By Tony Bartelme
The Post and Courier

The Bush administration's proposal to sell national forestland, including 1,100 acres in the Francis Marion National Forest, died quietly this week after a Senate committee failed to include it in a spending bill.

Conservationists cheered. "It was such an ill-conceived idea from the start," said Dana Beach, executive director of the Coastal Conservation League.

Still, Forest Service officials have said they might revive the plan next year.

In a recent interview with The Post and Courier, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said they might reshape the proposal to make it more palatable.

The Forest Service received more than 130,000 comments, nearly all opposed to its plan to sell 300,000 acres of national forestland in 32 states. Rey said the sales would generate $800 million for rural schools and roads.

In South Carolina, the Forest Service proposed selling about 3,500 acres in Sumter National Forest in the Midlands and Upstate and 1,100 acres on 17 tracts in the Francis Marion. Rey said that only land with no recreational or scenic value was targeted for the auction block. But many people disagreed, saying some tracts were popular with hunters, hikers and others.

"The recreation demand and the use of these national forests continues to go up," said David Carr with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "We should be adding to the base and not subtracting it."

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