SANDPOINT - Idaho counties with substantial amounts of federally-owned lands are proposing a pilot project to transfer management of 200,000 acres of forest to the Idaho Department of Lands.

The Community Forest Trust project is being proposed by Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Shoshone and Valley counties to forge a path away from federal payments under the Secure Rural Schools & Community Self-Determination Act.

"We don't want a blank check. To us, we would rather have jobs," said Boundary County Commissioner Dan Dinning.

Congress has long recognized special obligations to local governments and communities where the federal government had extensive land ownership. Federal law requires 25 percent of the receipts of national forest resource sales be returned to counties in which those lands are located.

But in 2000, Congress recognized that revenues from national forest activities had fallen sharply, which gave rise to the Secure Rural Schools Act. The law established payments from the U.S. Treasury to counties proportionate to the funds lost from timber harvest revenues.

Dinning said the act was always meant to be a stopgap measure until new programs on federal forest lands were developed to provide reliable and sustainable revenue to local counties.

However, those programs have either not come to pass or faltered, and federal forest management further declined, said Dinning.

He attributes the decline to increasing regulation in national forests through the Endangered Species Act, roadless area designations, old-growth forest protections and legal challenges to timber sales.

Under the Secure Rural Schools Act, 70 percent of the treasury payments go to counties' road and bridge departments and 30 percent goes to local school districts.

There is little to no expectation that the Secure Rural Schools Act will be re-authorized.