In an unprecedented letter in late May 2003, leaders of the National Park Service under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton came together to condemn a decision to extend and increase snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. 

Download the signed letter or read the text of the letter below.

May 20, 2003

The Honorable Gale Norton
United States Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Dear Secretary Norton:

It has been our privilege collectively to serve nine presidents as stewards of America's national parks. For each of us, this experience underscored the pride and joy that Americans feel for their common heritage and their desire to have national parks vigorously preserved for their grandchildren. In this spirit, we write to you about a final decision that is before you regarding snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. There can be no doubt that this decision is a defining moment for America's national parks.

The choice over snowmobile use in Yellowstone is a choice between upholding the founding principle of our national parks--stewardship on behalf of all visitors and future generations--or catering to a special interest in a manner that would damage Yellowstone's resources and threaten public health. The latter choice would set an entirely new course for America's national parks.

It is our deep hope as this issue now moves to your final review that you will ensure the highest protection for Yellowstone. To do otherwise would be a radical departure from the Interior Department's stewardship mission. Yellowstone is an irreplaceable national treasure, a symbol of our country, and a gathering place where Americans feel justifiably proud that our country led the world by establishing its first national park. A decision made on behalf of the snowmobile industry and not for Yellowstone's environment and the general public would be wrong.

On many occasions, President Bush has made laudable pledges that members of his administration will always be fully accountable to the public. In keeping with this, we are mindful of your assertions regarding snowmobile use in Yellowstone; they are as important today as they were when you made them.

Two years ago, the Interior Department directed that a supplemental environmental study be undertaken so that additional information and wider public involvement could be brought to bear in making the best possible decision about Yellowstone's future. The Department asserted that this information would be essential to a sound decision.

On the basis of the new data, the National Park Service verified that phasing out snowmobile use would provide the best protection of Yellowstone's environment and the health of employees and visitors. The study concluded that ending snowmobile use while providing visitors access on snowcoaches:

"best preserves the unique historic, cultural, and natural resources associated with Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks" and would "attain the the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation and risk of health and safety."
--Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, February 2003

We hope that you will now embrace the central conclusion of a study that your Department asserted to the American people would shape a better decision. To ignore its conclusion would clearly be to accept avoidable risks to health and safety, a narrower range of beneficial uses, and weaker preservation of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Your Department also called for wider public involvement and the call was unquestionably answered. More Americans submitted comments to the National Park Service than the agency has received on any single issue in its 87-year history. While the volume of comment was unprecedented, its reflection of public opinion was consistent with previous comment periods over the past several years. By a 4-to-1 margin, Americans urged you to give Yellowstone the best possible protection and said they believe--as the National Park Service has confirmed--that this means replacing snowmobiles with snowcoaches. We hope that after calling for public comment, you will heed, not ignore, what the public has told you.

Clearly we are in economic and budgetary times that require us to be scrupulous with every tax dollar. This is another reason why we urge you to adopt a phaseout of snowmobile use. Your study demonstrated that continuing snowmobile use in Yellowstone would result not only in higher levels of air and noise pollution, harm to wildlife, and risks for employee and visitor health; it would also cost taxpayers $1.3 million more each year than replacing snowmobiles with snowcoaches. Surely you will not ask the American taxpayer to pay more for less protection, an annual transfer payment to the snowmobile industry subsidizing ongoing damage to Yellowstone.

We would be remiss if we did not emphasize one final point. Yellowstone's wintertime struggles with pollution, noise, and traffic congestion fit into a larger context. Throughout the National Park System, we have been striving for years to develop more efficient transportation systems so that the visitor's national park experience can be defined by each park's special attributes and not by negative aspects of traffic that most visitors hope to leave at home.

Zion National Park is an excellent example of the success and popularity of this strategy. Where automobile traffic had clogged Zion's once quiet canyons and the visitor's experience was being defined by noise, exhaust, and frustrations finding parking, the Park Service substituted shuttle bus access. This change boosted gateway business, earned accolades from visitors who today are enjoying a better park experience, and reduced impacts to Zion's resources.

In Yellowstone, the supplemental study that you requested has demonstrated that replacing snowmobiles with an efficient system of snowcoaches would bring similar benefits. In fact, with wildlife under stress from Yellowstone's deep snows and frigid temperatures, and employees and visitors breathing snowmobile fumes often trapped by the park's inversions, the benefits of reducing traffic and emissions would be even greater than they have been in Zion.

In summary, we join as former public stewards of America's national parks in urging you to place Yellowstone National Park back on a path that gives the highest priority to protecting its natural qualities for today's visitors and future generations. To do otherwise would ignore sound science, the public will, and responsibility to taxpayers. And worst of all, it would erode a precious gift that this country gave itself and the world, a gift that will only become more valuable to our nation as our population grows.

Sincerely,

George B. Hartzog, Jr.
National Park Service Director (1964-1972)

Nathaniel P. Reed
Assistant Secretary of the Interior (1971-1976)

Russell E. Dickenson
National Park Service Director (1980-1985)

Denis P. Galvin
National Park Service Deputy Director (1985-1989 and 1998-2002)

Roger G. Kennedy
National Park Service Director (1993-1997)

Robert Stanton
National Park Service Director (1997-2001)

Robert D. Barbee
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent (1983-1994)

Michael V. Finley
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent (1994-2001)

cc:
Rep. C.W. Bill Young
Rep. David R. Obey
Rep. Richard Pombo
Rep. Nick J. Rahall