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By ANGIE WAGNER
.c The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Democrats weren't the only ones who watched this week's election results with mounting discomfort. Environmentalists also were alarmed by the GOP's tightened grip on Congress.

Many conservationists fear Republican gains in the Senate and House mean President Bush's agenda on natural resource issues could face a friendlier reception, from proposals to log in national forests to drill in Alaska.

``I think it's very, very bad news for the environment of the West,'' said Debbie Sease, Sierra Club national legislative director. ``I think it's going to result in more timber being cut in our national forests. There'll be attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.''

But some analysts said Bush is unlikely to get everything he wants, including drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Democrats, joined by a handful of moderate GOP lawmakers, likely still have enough clout to stop the proposal.

``It's not doom and gloom for the environmentalists. It's just now we're going to have an open debate about these issues,'' said Chris West, vice president of the timber industry's American Forest Resource Council in Portland, Ore.

The House in August approved an energy bill that included drilling in the Arctic refuge, but the Senate has rejected development there. Some geologists estimate as much as 11 billion barrels of oil may lie beneath the refuge.

Drilling in the refuge is a top energy priority of the White House, which argues the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain can be tapped without disrupting wildlife or polluting the environment. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has pledged to ``impose the toughest environmental standards ever applied to oil production'' if the refuge is opened.

Democrats have blocked drilling, saying the risk is too high and the potential benefit too low. Development, they say, could disrupt caribou calving areas, the home of musk-oxen, the winter dens of polar bears and the summer stopover for millions of migratory birds.

Republican gains in midterm elections Tuesday also may improve the outlook for Bush's proposal to cut wildfire risk by allowing loggers more access to national forests.

The conflict centers on a disagreement over how much logging should be allowed to remove unnaturally high levels of brush and small trees that have resulted from decades of suppressing fires. In centuries past, small fires periodically cleared forests of such undergrowth.

Groups including the American Lands Alliance, Citizens for Better Forestry and the National Forest Protection Alliance held rallies across the country Thursday to demonstrate against the Bush-backed forest legislation.

``It's a very dangerous time,'' said Brian Vincent, California organizer for the American Lands Alliance. ``There is no doubt a cocky White House and their gloating allies in Congress are going to use their inflated muscle to try to open up public forests to industrial-strength logging.''

Republicans want to speed up logging projects, which supporters say routinely get bogged down for years in studies and appeals. A leading GOP proposal would streamline environmental studies, require the government to look at fewer alternatives and limit administrative and judicial appeals.

Some western Democrats agree with the need for forest thinning - and quicker decisions - but differ with Republican proposals they say are too sweeping.

Critics say the thinning programs are abused to remove larger, commercial-sized timber.

Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada predicted the new GOP majority in the Senate would vote to allow both increased logging in forests and drilling in Alaska.

But Jerry Hood, executive committee member of Arctic Power, the state-funded group that lobbies in favor of drilling, said it's too early to predict what will happen.

``I don't think just because the Republicans are back in control of the Senate that that means any great swings on those types of issues,'' Hood said. ``It's not going to be a cakewalk by any means.''

For Dave Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society, the new political reality means environmentalists must learn to deal with the new and strengthened Republican majorities.

``That is a fact of political life in America today,'' he said.

On the Net:

Wilderness Society: www.wilderness.org

Arctic Power: www.anwr.org