Groups want Forest Service to regulate snowmobiles just like other vehicles

A coalition of conservation groups is pushing to change U.S. Forest Service rules so the federal agency regulates snowmobiles on national forest lands in the same manner it treats other off-road vehicles. The groups, including six with interests in Teton County, are circulating a petition and are scheduled to meet with federal officials to ask that snowmobiles no longer be exempt from rules that regulate off-road vehicles. Snowmobiles were excluded from a 2005 rule, a move that contradicts a 1972 presidential order, the groups contend. As a result, national forests in snowbelt states and people who recreate there are being unfairly affected by snowmobiles, the groups say. The goal is not to eliminate snowmobiling, said Forrest McCarthy, public lands director with the Winter Wildlands Alliance in Jackson, but to control their use as envisioned by law to protect resources, skiers, snowshoers and hikers. A snowmobile advocacy group is opposed to the effort said Greg Mumm, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition in Pocatello, Idaho. Adequate regulations exist to govern snowmobiles, he said. “This is just another effort on the part of extremists groups to take another bite at the apple to try and get closures, to exclude any kind of motorized use,” he said in a telephone interview. “We just don’t think it’s necessary at all to even consider this.”...more