Boston ? With the state facing a $3 billion deficit, Massachusetts lawmakers are considering selling corporate sponsors the naming rights to parks and forests, including the Walden Woods immortalized by Henry David Thoreau.

Some big-city mayors around the country have considered similar proposals, but Massachusetts would be the first state to pass such a law.

The move is a reflection of the desperate financial straits in which many states and local governments find themselves.

“It seems to me, should there be parks, information kiosks and all kinds of potential opportunities, let’s just talk about them,” said Republican state Rep. Bradley Jones Jr., the House minority leader who drafted the measure. “If we weren’t in a major budget crisis, people wouldn’t necessarily focus their efforts there.”

But the prospect of a leafy stroll in a forest emblazoned with the name of a Fortune 500 company has alarmed environmental groups.

“What’s next, big plastic Coke bottles on top of the Statehouse?” said Jim Gomes, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. “It’s really a bad joke.”

House lawmakers on Monday voted to draw up guidelines for sponsoring and renaming parks and forests. The measure, part of the proposed budget, goes next to the Senate. Once the guidelines are developed, lawmakers would have to vote again on whether to actually authorize such sales.

Lawmakers said they had no estimate of how much money the idea might raise, and were uncertain what restrictions would be placed on sponsorship deals. Those details would be worked out in a report due by November.

Elsewhere around the country, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hired a consultant to devise a plan to raise money by selling, among other things, sponsorships for parks in the Big Apple. Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Sacramento, Calif., considered similar ideas in recent years.

“We’re at a time when everything is for sale,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, an Oregon-based nonprofit group that opposes commercialization in government. “Mayors are willing to put a price tag on anything, no matter what the price on the culture.”

Steve Adams, president of the Boston-based Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank, said selling corporate naming rights was a no-brainer.

“I don’t know how you could be against this, frankly,” he said. “No one is talking about putting up giant signs that mar the landscape. If companies are willing to do it, why not tap that opportunity?”