Yellowstone, Grand Teton Snowmobile Ban Is Stopped in Its Tracks

The House voted Thursday against halting the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Snowmobile use in the parks would have been phased out by next winter under a Clinton administration plan. But the Bush administration proposed new rules allowing the vehicles to enter the parks daily but setting standards for noise and pollution and limiting them to park trails.

And in another victory for President Bush, the chamber voted to uphold administration plans to allow development on some of the 58 million acres of federal forests where road building has been banned since the closing days of the Clinton administration.

The votes were among several triumphs for the White House as the Republican-led House debated a bill providing $19.6 billion for the Interior Department and other federal land and cultural programs next year. The overall measure was approved Thursday night by a vote of 268 to 152.

The 210-210 defeat of the snowmobile ban -- with a majority required for a provision to prevail -- was a victory for winter motor-sports interests. Even so, environmentalists said they were buoyed by the close margin in the Republican-run House, despite its rejection of their argument that the tracked vehicles spew too much pollution and threaten wildlife.

“The Park Service actually issues respirators to its rangers -- it is that bad -- and they use them,” said Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., a sponsor of the defeated provision.

The House also rejected efforts to ban bear baiting -- luring bears with food so they can be shot -- on public lands, and to forbid federal funds from being used to kill bison that leave Yellowstone. Local ranchers are concerned the buffalo might transmit disease to their cattle.

Advocates of federal financing for the arts won a fight when the chamber voted 225 to 200 to provide $127 million next year for the National Endowment for the Arts, $10 million more than Bush requested.

Republicans decided not to try to kill a provision limiting the Bush administration’s ability to replace many Interior Department workers with employees of private companies. Democrats said Republicans lacked the votes to erase the language, which has drawn a White House veto threat.

The Senate has yet to complete action on its version of the Interior funding bill.