WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is trying to figure out how to head off the spread of chronic wasting disease, a lethal brain illness threatening deer and elk herds in at least eight states.

Split between the Agriculture and Interior departments, the federal plan includes more tracking of herds and mapping of cases, development of better diagnostic tests and research on how the disease spreads.

“Generally the reaction from the government has been, ‘We don’t know that much. We don’t think it’s that big of a problem,”‘ said Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., a veterinarian. “Now they’re beginning to realize it’s a much bigger problem than they imagined.”

Allard, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and other members of Congress have been urging Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Interior Secretary Gale Norton to develop a coordinated, comprehensive strategy to combat the disease.

A blueprint of their plan is to be laid out Thursday before the House Resources forests and forest health subcommittee.

“There’s a fire out there and I don’t want us in the firehouse arguing about the firetrucks,” said Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., the subcommittee chairman.

Wasting disease was identified 35 years ago in a captive mule deer herd at a northern Colorado testing facility. Until a few years ago it was thought to be limited to that part of Colorado.

It since has been discovered in wild or captive deer and elk in other parts of Colorado, as well as Wisconsin, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, Oklahoma and South Dakota and into Canada. Researchers believe commercial shipments of deer and elk may have helped spread the illness.

The disease is closely related to mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which infects humans. Infected animals become weak and develop brain lesions. Wasting disease is always fatal, but is not believed to be transmissible outside of deer or elk.