NEWS & PUBLICATIONS

Statement by Steven Bosak on Wyoming Court's Reversal on Yellowstone Snowmobile Use

Washington, D.C. - This decision is deeply disappointing for Americans who want to protect Yellowstone National Park so they and their grandchildren can enjoy it unimpaired. Yellowstone's visitors and staff were just beginning to experience the health benefits predicted by the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency from a snowmobile phaseout. By raising the number of snowmobiles allowed in the park each day by nearly 60 percent for this winter, the Park Service too has moved backward, ignoring not only common sense methods for protecting parks and the people in them but also decades of scientific information, the administration's own studies, and the overwhelming choice of the American people.

Yellowstone National Park belongs to everyone. We need to move forward with increased snowcoach access; it is the clean, quiet means by which all Americans can experience Yellowstone's beauty in a way that doesn't harm visitors, staff, or wildlife. By continuing to stall implementation of the original Park Service snowcoach plan, which has twice been shown to best protect the parks, their visitors, and staff, and provide access for all, this decision jeopardizes the future of this national treasure.