Two influential Republican lawmakers from Alaska have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the U.S. Forest Service for allegedly using employees and taxpayers' money to lobby Congress.

Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Resources Committee, contend that Forest Service Chief Michael P. Dombeck gave agency officials a communications plan that encouraged them to use telephone calls, speeches, meetings, interest groups and the news media to gain support for its legislative proposals.

It is illegal for an agency to lobby Congress.

• While Dombeck denies doing anything illegal, Forest Service officials have admitted distributing articles to media outlets, having other agency officials contact journalists and distributing material to other agency officials and retirees.

• The proposals that the Forest Service wanted to support last spring included road funding requests and changes in the agency's system of making payments to the states.

• The 1998 Department of the Interior Appropriations Act states in part that agencies may not use federal funds for "any activity... that in any way tends to promote public support or opposition to any legislative proposal on which Congressional action is not complete."

• If the GAO determines the law was violated, congressional committees could penalize the Forest Service -- such as by withholding funds from the agency's budget next year.

Source: John Hughes, "Forest Service Foes Seek GAO Review," Washington Post, December 1, 1998.