Judge strikes down Bush plan for snowmobiling in Yellowstone

[Judi Lynn]

Judge strikes down Bush plan for snowmobiling in Yellowstone

JACK SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, December 16, 2003
(12-16) 19:44 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The National Park Service must revive a plan scrapped by the Bush administration to ban snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, a federal judge ordered Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said the Bush administration should not have set aside a Clinton administration plan that would have banned snowmobiles in favor of mass-transit snow coaches, which would reduce pollution in the parks.

The administration dropped that plan and decided to instead allow limited snowmobiling to continue under rules that only allowed snowmobiles with quieter and less-polluting engines.

The Park Service had said the cleaner snowmobiles and limited entries would protect the park while allowing snowmobiling to continue, even though the earlier snow coach plan was the best way to protect the parks from pollution. (snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/12/16/national2004EST0700.DTL

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Schweeeeet!!!

[hyphenate]

2. Good

A judge that wasn't bought by this bAdministration.

[bluestateguy]

3. selfish snowmobile riders

Yellowstone is a national park, not a playground. These snowmobile riders have no respect for nature or the environment. They care only about their own titilation from driving around like little boys and girls in motorized vehicles.

[nn2004]

24. The selfish snowmobilers should take up XC sking

It's only about 70 miles round trip to old faithful from the hotel in West Yellowstone and any healthy person can easily make the trip in a day. Fun for the whole family and healthy too.

[VT70]

32. I dunno

I don't think the government should ban snowmobiling here.

[havocmom]

4. Yiippppeeeeee!

Let the games begin.

The fossil fuel fanatics will whine and snivel about this one. They think they have a god given right to roar around and make a lot of racket which certainly messes up the wilderness experience for others. They do not stay on the approved trails and end up putting extra stress on wildlife that is already stressed by the harsh winters of the area. They also get themselves in trouble with avalanches (sometimes caused by noise vibration) which means search and rescue personell have to take risks to save their sorry butts.

[hlthe2b]

5. Yesssss! I've waited so long for good news on this one...

Let's here it for the park, the animals, the environment (and for those cross country skiers) who can come in without destroying the park.

[Military Brat]

6. A little bit of justice for the animals and the environment

Thank you, Judge Sullivan!

:toast:

[hatrack]

7. Take THAT, Chimp-Boy!

Tape that court order it to a Sno-Cat and drive it right up your ASS!!

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

8. Snowmobiles have their advantages.

Canada has a long history of incidents that involved a snowmobile, thin ice, and a few too many Molsons. I tell you, those puppies weed out the gene pool like you wouldn't believe.

Yellowstone's a pretty dangerous place if you don't stick to the path, even in the winter. We're talking limitless possibilities to see Darwinism in action here, people. Let the snowmobilers in, and the place becomes a ten-million-acre Roach Motel for America's moronic yahoos.

[burrowowl]

11. Yes but

recovering all those snowmobiles and recycling them.
If scavangers get to eat the idiots, might be a good deal.

[HuckleB]

14. They'll go elsewhere.

And Yellowstone will be Yellowstone again. This snowmobile infestation only began in earnest in the late '80s, with a big push in the last decade.

[maggrwaggr]

9. Cheney'll have to use snow-shoes to slaughter Elk in Yellowstone

and with his bad ticker he'll never make it.

pooooooor Cheney.

[Kolesar]

13. Staff will have to lead them by leash to where Dick can shoot them

Palsied, pathetic bastard that he is.

[Snazzy]

10. Fed Judge: "...completely politically driven..."

Sullivan said the Park Service did not adequately explain the switch.

"Indeed, there is evidence in the record that there isn't an explanation for the change, and that the (study that led to the new rules) was completely politically driven and result oriented," he wrote.

Same AP now on Yahoo!:


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=4&u=/ap/20031217/ap_on_go_pr_wh/yellowstone_snowmobiles

[Hand]

25. Judge Sullivan...

:yourock: :yourock: :yourock: :yourock:

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

:toast: :toast: :toast: :toast:

[HuckleB]

12. Wow! So the Clinton Admin's study and careful research win out

over Bush's rush to please his donors?

I'm shocked! Happy, but shocked!

[0007]

15. Good for slience and peace of mind!

[buddhamama]

16. All right !

:kick:

[tlcandie]

17. Let's just hope it continues to stand .. will be appealed it seems :p

nt

[nn2004]

18. Not good enough

The snowcoaches pollute more than the new 4stroke snowmachines and should be banned too. As a matter of fact all the diesel motorhomes and the millions of other vehicles that pollute the park in the summer should be banned. Tear up the roads leading into the park and let people hike in if they want to see it.

Just because the park was created as a "pleasuring ground" for humans does not mean we have a right to destroy it with cars, trucks, busses, motorcycles, snowcoaches or any other destructive vehicle. Shut them ALL out and shut them out now!

[MaineDem]

19. Thank you...thank you...thank you

If the proliferation of snowmobiles around here is any indication of the noise, air, and aesthetic pollution that will be avoided in the National Parks, this is a very good thing!

I alsways thought the Bush idea was stupid. But, then again, I think most of his ideas are.

[nn2004]

21. Why not push for a statewide ban on snowmobiles in Maine?

There are enough progressives in Maine to see it through. Ban the importing of snowmobile into the state or tax them at 1000% so that everyone that wants one will just give up and buy skis. Snowmobilers should not be allowed to totally destroy the environment. I doubt that there is a single Democrat that snowmobiles so it can only be a winning move.

[RPG-7]

29. that's so clever!

[dusty64]

20. Good.

Just another example that when it comes to environmental policy, NO industry is too small to get preferential treatment by our regime.

[ellie]

22. Get a load of this idiot

"But some local businessmen were upset by the ruling.

David McCray, who has a snowmobile rental company in West Yellowstone, said he had invested heavily in the cleaner snowmobiles because he thought his business needed them. But he said he never would have done so if the case had been decided earlier this fall.

"For the judge to throw this out at the 12th hour is unconscionable," he said."


No, what is unconscionable is the fact that prick bastard bush overturned the ban in the first place. McCray needs to adapt to survive. As if the world rotated for him only.

[nn2004]

23. Same thing goes for the snowcoach renters

The coaches pollute more than the newer and cleaner snowmobiles and should be eliminated right along with them. Let all the business owners rent skis and poles if they want to stay in business. If all the hotels and local business have to shut down because lazy people can't ski the 70 miles round trip to old faithful then so be it. I doubt that any of the residents and workers in West Yellowstone vote Democrat anyway so it's no big loss and they deserve what they get for not voting correctly.

[NickB79]

28. Thats not fair to say

"If all the hotels and local business have to shut down because lazy people can't ski the 70 miles round trip to old faithful then so be it."

Many, many people who go to see the beauty of Yellowstone are physically incapable of going out on foot/showshoes/skis into the wilderness. People who are handicapped, people with small children, people who have injuries or heart disorders preventing them from hiking long distances, and especially the older generations. I can't see my grandparents hiking through Yellowstone or cross-country skiing without dropping from heartattacks. They're not lazy, but would enjoy seeing the beauty of nature there. I say keep the snowcoaches, but in fewer numbers and give preference to the groups mentioned above. Or, retrofit them to use electrical engines instead of gasoline or diesel. Anyway, the sheer numbers of snowmobiles would outdo any amount of pollution the far fewer numbers of snowcoaches could make. Even if you were to keep the more-polluting snowcoaches, you'd still have a net drop in pollution because there'd be so many fewer of them.

[ochazuke]

27. Crybaby Capitalists

It's called RISK! That guy invested in a very risky business. What did he think would happen? Does he think the Bush people will rule the whole freaking world?

I suppose he'll sue the government to reimburse him.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. wow some GOOD news today....thanks

[callous taoboy]

30. Fuggin' G.W.

miserable sob always defends the assholes among us.

[VT70]

31. This is lame

What the hell is so wrong with snowmobiling in Yellowstone?

[govegan]

33. From the Wilderness Society

Yellowstone National Park in summer is a masterwork. Yellowstone in winter is a miracle. Snow drapes lodgepole pines and capes bison as they forage in the vapor from thermal pools. That familiar Yellowstone image is a winter photographic staple. But it is giving way to another: rangers, also barely visible but obscured in snowmobile exhaust, not water vapor, and wearing gas masks as they tend entrance stations. And bison are as apt to be seen fleeing from snowmobiles as going about their serious winter business of husbanding the energy to make it to spring. That is America's greatest national park today.

"... a national treasure"
"Americans have a national treasure in the Yellowstone Park and they should guard it jealously. Nature has made her wildest patterns here, has brought the boiling waters from her greatest depths to the peaks which bear eternal snow, and set her masterpiece with pools like jewels."
- Frederick Remington, after visiting Yellowstone in 1893

The National Park Service tells us snowmobiles cause problems in Yellowstone: blue haze lingers over Old Faithful; Park Service rangers don respirators, but only to breathe; bison and other wildlife flee snowmobiles.

Before it unveiled its new snowmobile management proposal in November 2002, the National Park Service studied, once again, areas of particular concern. They included air quality, visibility, soundscapes, health and safety, impacts on wildlife and visitor experience. The study found that in virtually all areas, snowmobile use damages the park. The agency says that visibility will be impaired around Old Faithful, visitors will hear more noise, and "employees and visitors who are susceptible to respiratory problems would likely be affected." Science implicates human health, of both visitors and park employees, in another way: snowmobile use spreads poisons, benzene and carbon monoxide among them, through both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The list goes on; so will the damage it catalogs.