[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12647-12648]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                USING SNOW MACHINES IN YELLOWSTONE PARK

  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I know it is now summer, but I will now 
talk about using snow machines in the Yellowstone Park in the 
wintertime. It is a question that has become quite political, as a 
matter of fact. There have been letters sent to the Department of the 
Interior from the Senate on both sides.
  For a number of years, in Grand Teton, in Yellowstone Park, and many 
of the other parks, the principal access people have had in the 
wintertime to enjoy their park was with snow machines. It has been done 
for a long time, really. Frankly, there hasn't been much management of 
that technique, unfortunately. The park officials have not had much to 
do with it. They have not sought to organize how and where it is done, 
separate the snow machines from the cross-country skiers, which can be 
done so each can have their own opportunity. It has to manage numbers 
sometimes, for instance, if they become too large around Christmas 
vacation.
  They can make changes, but they have not done that. They have an 
opportunity, and we have an opportunity to have much cleaner machines, 
which are less noisy and which are less polluting. The manufacturers 
have indicated they can and will do this. Of course, they need some 
assurance from EPA that having done it, they will be able to use these 
machines. But none of these things have happened. Instead, because of 
the difficulties that are, in fact, there and without management, an 
EIS study went on for several years.
  Unfortunately, toward the end, instead of going on through with the 
regular system of input, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior went 
out and said this is what the answer is going to be. The answer was to 
do away with individual snow machines in the parks over a period of a 
couple of years. That isn't what is designed to happen when you have 
EIS studies and when you involve local communities and local people and 
then have somebody from Washington come and make the decision. But that 
is what did happen.
  Furthermore, the regulation that was agreed to in the study was put 
before the public the last day of the last administration when there 
was no opportunity to do anything about it. So what has happened is 
that there has been a lawsuit filed. I have introduced a bill that 
would allow not to continue snow machines the way they have been but, 
rather, to do the management technique, manage the numbers and the 
sites, and also set specifications so that manufacturers can meet them 
and you can go forward.
  What is the purpose of the park? It is to preserve the resources and 
to allow the owners to enjoy them. This is the way that you have access 
in the wintertime.
  So this has become somewhat of a discussion, somewhat of a 
controversy. I am hopeful that they can come to an agreement--and this 
administration is working toward coming to an agreement--in which these 
changes could be made. Nobody is suggesting to continue to do it the 
way it has been done in the past. But there can be changes made that 
will indeed allow access and protect the environment and the animals 
and the rural environment at the same time. We can do those things.
  One other word on national parks.
  The Grand Teton National Park was expanded in 1950. When that was 
done, there were a number of lands that were brought into the park, and 
among them were several school sections that belonged to the State of 
Wyoming.

[[Page 12648]]

They are now in the park as inholdings and therefore cannot be managed 
by the park but cannot be used for anything else. Therefore, we have 
two losers: One is the park which has these inholdings it cannot 
handle; second is the school sections are to finance education, and 
they are not bringing in revenue to the State of Wyoming.
  To make a long story short, I have a bill I hope will be before the 
committee soon to allow the Secretary of the Interior and the State of 
Wyoming to come to some agreement in finding a value for those lands by 
using an appraiser upon which they agree and then work out an 
arrangement to either trade those lands for other Federal lands outside 
the park, trade them for mineral royalties, or sell but come to some 
financial arrangement.
  I hope we can get some support for something that will be useful to 
Grand Teton National Park as well as the State of Wyoming.
  I think our time has expired. I yield the floor.

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