The Bush administration yesterday let stand a rule approved by former President Clinton to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, but it said that it hoped to craft a compromise in the near future to amend the rule and allow some snowmobile use to continue. The rule, finalized on Clinton’s last day in office, outlaws recreational snowmobiles in the parks by the winter of 2003-04. To the dismay of enviros, attorneys working for Interior Secretary Gale Norton are trying to reach a settlement with snowmobile users, manufacturers, and others who have sued over the ban. The U.S. EPA has found that snowmobiles cause “significant environmental and human health impacts.”
