[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: No Snowmobiles

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No Snowmobiles

August 21, 2004
 


 

When it comes to snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park,
the Bush administration seems to have a hard time
understanding what science has to tell it. So here's the
bottom line: no snowmobiles. They're bad for wildlife, bad
for rangers, bad for visitors, bad for the air and bad for
the very idea of what Yellowstone stands for. That was the
National Park Service's conclusion after careful study
during the Clinton administration, and it was backed up by
further study even after George Bush took office. But now,
given a deadlock in the courts, the National Park Service
is proposing new rules that will allow up to 720
snowmobiles a day into the park for three years. That is
just slightly fewer than the current average of 765
snowmobiles a day. 

At this point in the debate, the question is no longer
whether the snowmobile issue has been examined carefully
enough or whether advocates on both sides have had a chance
to express their opinions. The question is this: Why is the
Bush administration working so hard to cram snowmobiles
down the public's throat? It isn't to protect the
snowmobiling economy of West Yellowstone, Mont., nor is it
to protect snowmobilers and snowmobile manufacturers, who
have access to hundreds of miles of trails in the
Yellowstone region outside the park. The reason the Bush
administration keeps backing snowmobiles in Yellowstone is
to protect a vision of wild lands that is fundamentally
invasive and ultimately extractive. The very idea that a
natural landscape could be off limits seems to be anathema
to this administration. 

The National Park system is strapped for money,
underfinanced and understaffed. The Bush administration has
yet to satisfy its pledge to make the system financially
whole. Yet it continues to waste time and money trying to
defend and manage a policy that has no support among the
service's own scientists or those at the Environmental
Protection Agency. The result has been a bizarre crusade
whose only justification is politics. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21sat4.html?ex=1094112541&ei=1&en=42ac720239ac29e3


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