[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12910-12911]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         THE USE OF SNOW MACHINES IN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to talk about an 
important issue specifically to Wyoming, the Yellowstone National Park. 
In a broader sense, it is an issue that affects all kinds of parks and 
Federal public lands. It has to do with the question of access to these 
lands. Particularly, I am very interested in national parks, having 
grown up just outside of Yellowstone. I served as chairman of the 
National Parks Subcommittee for a long time. So I am very interested in 
parks.
  We are in the process of working on an issue that I think has broader 
implications. It is the ability to use snow machines to see Yellowstone 
National Park in the wintertime. It is something that has been done, of 
course, for a number of years, and certainly there have to be changes 
that take place with use, and, as people are involved, unfortunately, 
those changes have not taken place as much as they should. Now we find 
ourselves in a dilemma with efforts made to eliminate the opportunity 
for people to use these machines in the wintertime.
  As I mentioned, I think the purpose of the park is to maintain the 
resource, and all of us would agree to that. It is one of the national 
treasures that we have. We spend a lot of time here on parks--to 
establish new parks, and so on.
  The second purpose of having a park, of course, in addition to saving 
the resource, is to give the opportunity for the park's owners to enjoy 
it--the people of America. And of course it needs to be done in an 
orderly way so there is not a problem with destroying those resources.
  As I mentioned, snow machines in Yellowstone Park have been used for 
a good number of years. They are limited to the roads that are prepared 
for snow machining. You cannot go off the road; you stay on those 
roads. That has been the rule through the years. They enter, basically, 
in three of the entryways that come into Yellowstone Park, which is 
fewer than there are in the summer.

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  Of course, the wildlife remains in the park in the winter, for a good 
part of the time at least, and so one of the problems or complaints has 
been that the idea of preparing the roads for the use by snow machines 
provides an exit for the buffalo, and they go into Montana. There are 
concerns about brucellosis, and so on, and they don't like to have that 
happen.
  The fact is that the roads are going to be prepared for use, whether 
visitors can use them or others, because they have to be used by the 
rangers and the people who are in the park.
  In any event, this issue kind of came to a head about 2, 3 years ago 
when the Clinton administration had prepared a regulation that there 
would be no more use of snow machines in the wintertime. Well, many of 
us do not agree with that. We think there can be ways in which snow 
machines can be managed so that they can be changed if they need to be, 
that would take away the problems of that exit, and rather than to 
eliminate them, we think there ought to be a way to change them.
  Indeed, during the course of this time, there have been a number of 
changes being made, partly by the manufacturers. Of course, there can 
be a regulation and a standard as to how the machines would be allowed 
to reduce emissions they have had in the past. They would also reduce 
the noise, which has been something people have been concerned about.
  So we are prepared--and the manufacturers are prepared--to go into 
the market with machines, probably four-cycle engines rather than two, 
that would change both the emissions and the noise.
  As this went on, of course, as the Clinton administration pushed 
their regulation, there were lawsuits brought. Then there was a change 
in the administration. The original EIS that was done was extended, and 
we took action in the Congress to extend the use period for another 
couple of years, and another supplemental EIS was held so there could 
be some additional alternatives.
  The alternatives, of course, could be: Continue as it is now; 
eliminate it entirely; allow for coaches rather than individual snow 
machines; or change the rule so there could be some combination of the 
two.
  The time is down now pretty close to where there should be, in this 
month, as a matter of fact, a reestablishment of the options that would 
be available, any favored option by the administration.
  I met recently with the superintendents of the two parks, both the 
Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and they are prepared to do that. I think 
they are prepared to favor the option that would allow for the changes 
to be made in the machines and also for additional noise, but they 
could potentially have limitations on the numbers that could travel.
  It is kind of interesting because those who oppose it, of course, do 
not want to include any machines, regardless of the situation. There 
are now machines that have less emissions than an automobile. There are 
only about 600,000 of these machines and 1.6 million cars in the 
summer, so it is quite hard to figure out how they are going to do 
extensive damage.
  As I mentioned, there was a lawsuit. The snowmobile manufacturers, 
the State of Wyoming, and others brought a suit over the ban last 
summer. The settlement was agreed to. It called for a supplemental EIS, 
which I mentioned, which now has been done, and it called for some 
reasonable and commonsense resolutions and changes to the debate.
  The public process has been open. There have been lots of responses. 
Because the environmentalists organized it, they had more people 
against it send in a card than those who were for it, but those who 
really took time to examine the issue and come up with alternatives, 
that was pretty evenly divided between those who want to continue and 
those who do not.
  We are down now to making some decisions, and I think that is what we 
ought to do, and we are in this process.
  I am disappointed that since then, a bill has been introduced in the 
Senate to eliminate snow machines in the park. It seems to me that is 
entirely inappropriate when we go through this whole process that has 
been laid out where people can be involved in this decision, and then 
suddenly we decide we are going to make the decision here. I hope that 
is not the case. I think we have had, as I said, an opportunity, and we 
can continue to talk about it and we ought to certainly let that 
process work its way through, which I think it will.
  Everyone is for the protection of our parks. We all want to do that, 
and we can do that. We have had this sort of a problem in public lands, 
where you have to get a balance between usefulness and protection, and 
we can do that.
  We are into another thing now on limiting roads in the forests. 
Obviously, there ought to be some limitation, but there also has to be 
access. It is not only access to people who want to hunt or do those 
kinds of things. I have received lots of communications from veterans, 
for instance, who say: Gosh, I cannot hike 5 or 10 miles to get there.
  So we have to find a balance, and this is one of the areas in which a 
balance is necessary--not the only one. But I am saying that our 
resources of public lands and public uses also have to have access for 
a number of reasons. It also is an economic issue for people who live 
around the parks, as we do in Wyoming. So we hope we can go ahead with 
this and that the administration will continue to pursue the idea of 
having a resolution that provides for management, provides for 
protection, but provides people an avenue to still continue to enjoy 
the park.
  I thought it was kind of interesting that one of the complaints about 
the noise--and I understand that--is people who go there do not want to 
have noise in the wintertime. Well, there is nobody there unless they 
go on machines because there is no place they can go without them. It 
is too far away. I wanted to raise that point. I feel very strongly 
about it, of course, as do many of us.
  We certainly hope we can go on through this process and end up with 
an alternative that allows for the use of visitors to Yellowstone Park 
in the winter. It is a beautiful place. When one goes up there by Old 
Faithful and goes up the river, talk about the wildlife. One of the 
things that is sort of interesting is you drive along and if you want 
to stop, there is a buffalo right alongside the road in about 2 or 3 
feet of snow, and they move right along in this little place pushing 
the snow out of the way so they can eat what is left of the grass 
below. They are not concerned whether someone is there with a snow 
machine.
  I see my friend from Alaska is present to speak, and I yield the 
floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.

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