WASHINGTON — Commissioners from five Utah counties descended on Capitol Hill Wednesday to push for a bill to get government funding for rural schools.

The pending legislation would extend a current law originally passed in 2001 that provides a "safety net" for rural school districts, especially those in Western states, that have little private land available to tax and do not get all the money owed to them by the federal government.

Some communities had depended on funds generated from the Forest Service land to fund schools and other local projects, but the amounts started to decrease as the money generated by the Forest Service lands began to go down, according to the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition.

In 2000, Congress passed a law giving money to those communities that saw cuts. But the law expires on Sept. 30 unless Congress renews it.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has a bill that would extend the act and make other changes that could help rural communities in states, such as Utah, with a lot of public land. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is a co-sponsor of DeFazio's bill.

Maloy Dodds, a Garfield County commissioner, said his community saw a great decrease in funding after the sawmill closed in 1996. He said 96 percent of his county is federally owned, so renewing the bill is key to make up for federal support lost in the original money from the Forest Service.

"They do have a responsibility to help fund this," Dodds said.

Garfield County commissioners Dell LeFevre and Clare Ramsay, along with Box Elder County Commissioner Rich VanDyke, Duchesne County Commissioner Rod Harrison, Juab County Commissioner Chad Winn and Wasatch County Council member Mike Kohler were also in Washington Wednesday.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, wants to see rural communities and schools get the funding they deserve from the government, but in a fair way. He does not want to see additional user fees on parks in Western states or other ideas that would unfairly put the burden on the West to fund rural schools nationwide. He wants to make sure DeFazio's bill has a good funding source, which has not been decided yet.

In a speech to 150 school official and other county commissioners Wednesday as part of the coalition's lobby day, Bishop said it is important this bill pass but that it pass with bipartisan cooperation.

Bishop — and Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah — sit on the House Natural Resources Committee that would work on details of the bill.

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