WASHINGTON - The U.S. House on Thursday evening passed a $25.9 billion spending bill that would reduce funding for the Interior Department, Forest Service and national parks and would drop two Bush administration proposals to sell federal lands.

The bill passed 293-128. Reps. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., and Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., both voted in favor of the bill.

The fiscal year 2007 bill as approved by committee would set spending $145 million below 2006 levels. During a daylong floor debate, Republican appropriators said the totals adequately supported the interior and environmental agencies at a time of tight budgets, while Democrats said it did not contain enough money to carry out the agencies' responsibilities.

The Senate must still take up the funding measure, and then the two chambers will have to hammer out a compromise version.

Lawmakers noted that to fund other core programs, the bill reduces funding for grants programs, land acquisition and construction.

Rehberg, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said the bill is not perfect but that Congress will continue working on it and must balance priorities.

"We're going to be watching very careful to see the resource managers have the resources necessary," Rehberg said. "I feel the pressure of having to adequately fund but also being able to balance the budget as soon as we can. We can't just raise taxes to spend more money, so it's a balancing act. I feel very comfortable with this budget."

The spending bill does not include two Bush administration proposals that would have sold Forest Service lands to fund a rural-schools program and Bureau of Land Management acres to fund operations and reduce the debt.

"I'm real thrilled the land sale is not in there," said Rehberg, who opposed the plan. He noted that Congress must still find a way to reauthorize and fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.

Rehberg said he would also have liked a bigger increase in payments in lieu of taxes - payments made to local governments that cannot collect taxes on federal lands in their areas. In an amendment Thursday, the House raised the funding for PILT payments by $16 million to $244 million. Bush's budget had requested $198 million.

"More money has been put in, but it still is not fair for those counties that have a high portion of government properties," Rehberg said. "It is not adequately funding local governments. It's incumbent on me as a priority, and I think it's a legitimate public expense from the federal government, to increase that as much as I possibly can."

Cubin waited to hear amendments to the bill before casting her vote.

"I think overall it's a good bill," she said. "I think that this bill is a better bill than what the president budget request was. I don't think the president's budget request adequately funded many of the agencies and the programs that are so vital to the West."

She said the bill restored many of Bush's "misguided cuts," while still holding the overall spending levels of Interior and environmental agencies to below that of last year.

"I think that they can make some cuts at the administrative level," she said. "It's a hard thing to do. But we simply don't have the money to spend, so we have to do the best we can with fewer dollars."

She said $3.5 million for rehabilitation of buildings at a national fish hatchery in Jackson, $10 million for range improvement programs administered by the BLM and the increase in PILT were "very good for Wyoming."

She said snowmobile use will continue in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks this year and also praised the exclusion of federal land sales to fund rural schools.

As passed by committee, the bill includes $9.7 billion for the Interior Department, which is $211 million less than fiscal year 2006 levels, but $40 million more than Bush's request. The U.S. Forest Service is funded at $4.2 billion, which is $63 million less than in 2006 but $98 million more than the request.

The National Park Service is funded at $2.2 billion, which is $100 million less than in 2006. Most of the reductions came in the area of stateside land and water grants, and in limiting new construction and land acquisition.

The Environment Protection Agency is funded at $7.6 billion, $55 million less than in 2006 but $254 million more than the administration's request.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is funded at $1.3 billion, which is $55 million less than 2006 funding.

The bill also includes $37 million for the Interior Department to expedite expansion of energy development on federal lands and $23 million in the EPA for a "clean diesel initiative."

The House, by a 252-165, approved a measure that would bar oil companies from receiving new oil leases unless they renegotiate past contracts that allowed them to avoid federal royalty payments even when oil prices soar.

The measure is aimed at correcting a mistake by the Interior Department that led to oil and gas lease contracts being issued in 1998-99 that did not include a suspension of royalty payments if crude prices reached a certain level. Since then, prices have soared well beyond that ceiling, but these companies still have been exempted from royalty payments, costing the government as much as $7 billion in lost revenues.

While the measure does not order these contracts to be renegotiated, the House action would put pressure on companies to do so, its supporters said. "Energy companies have been taking oil and gas from the American people for free and then selling it back to them at record prices," said Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., sponsor of the amendment.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.