By JOHN HUGHES

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Forest Service should scrap its 2-month-old process for protecting 50 million acres of federal forests and begin again, two GOP senators said in a letter released Monday.

The process ``is replete with what we believe are fatal flaws,'' Sens. Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Frank Murkowski of Alaska told Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. ``To remedy these fatal flaws, the entire ... process must be started over.''

Forest Service officials have held more than 150 meetings in national forests and in cities since they began a yearlong process Oct. 19 to write rules that permanently protect the 50 million roadless acres, which have not been developed or logged.

The senators' letter cited specific complaints about the hearing process:

-Agency officials have not said how many acres are being set aside in each national forest.

-The public had only two days' notice of a meeting in Juneau, Alaska, had to draw names from a hat to speak in Portland, Ore., and were told they could not comment verbally at the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.

-Meeting formats seem to favor plan supporters in urban areas over rural opponents, which ``casts a very disturbing pall over the process.''

Smith chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Murkowski the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Chris Wood, a senior policy advisor to Dombeck, said the agency is examining the seven-page letter and will respond in detail later. But he said the agency was required by law only to gather written comments, not to hold hearings.

``It's safe to say the outreach we have made ... is unprecedented,'' Wood said.

Details of the plan, such as acreage amounts in individual forests, are not yet set because the comment-gathering process is still under way, he said.

Environmentalists have praised the directive, announced Oct. 13 by President Clinton, as one of the century's most ambitious conservation efforts. Republicans have criticized Clinton for bypassing Congress and accused him of blocking access to many of the nation's 192 million acres of public forests.