Resources Communications Victory Today for Recreation and Access House Defeats Amendment Banning Snowmobiles Washington, DC - Today the House of Representatives voted to defeat an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would have banned snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. "Common sense and balance between preservation and access won the day," said Chairman of the Resources Committee Richard W. Pombo (R-CA). "This was an arbitrary, extreme, and unnecessary proposal that would have locked the public out of these parks and devastated local economies." President Roosevelt eloquently stated the intent of the park when he dedicated the arch to the north entrance by saying, "This Park was created and is now administered for the benefit and enjoyment of the people...it is the property of Uncle Sam and therefore of us all." "Many of the radical environmentalists pushing for this ban want to put the parks in a museum where we can only view them through a glass wall," said Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY). "People in Wyoming know better. Those parks are there for all of us to enjoy, and they provide a living for thousands of people. This ban was a bad idea the first time it came up, it's a bad idea now, and I'm proud that I was able to help fight it off for another year." Each winter roughly 65,000 snowmobiles enter Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks for recreation. In fact, 90 percent of Yellowstone's winter visitors choose to travel by snowmobile. Accordingly, much of local economies in Montana and Wyoming depend on winter snowmobile recreation. The Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources has stated that banning snowmobiles from the parks would cost approximately $11.8 million in lost labor income a year and would cost Wyoming 938 jobs. For Wyoming, a state with less than 500,000 people (2000, U.S. Census Bureau), the loss of 938 jobs has a tremendous impact on the economy. To put that in perspective, these net job losses in Wyoming are equivalent to 67,743 lost jobs in California, 37, 952 lost jobs in New York, and 12,698 lost jobs in Massachusetts. New generation snowmobiles emit 90 percent fewer hydrocarbons, 70 percent less carbon monoxide and are 50 percent quieter than older, two-stroke snowmobiles. |