Washington – The Bush administration proposed new management policies for national parks Tuesday after critics blasted an earlier leaked draft that they said would have weakened protection of the parks.
Much of the controversial language was not included in the new policies.
“There’s no change in snowmobiles. There’s no change in personal watercraft. There’s no change in cell towers,” National Park Service Director Fran Mainella told reporters Tuesday, referring to elements of the earlier draft.
Parks advocates were on high alert because of a memo authored by former Cody, Wyo., chamber of commerce director Paul Hoffman, now an appointee overseeing the Park Service.
He suggested wording that critics viewed as changing the Park Service’s protective mission. For example, he suggested the Park Service should prevent “irreversible” harm, rather than simply preventing parks from being harmed.
Mainella said Hoffman was merely trying to “stimulate discussion.”
Activists spent Tuesday poring over the arcane language of the 300-page policy document. But Hoffman’s most controversial ideas did not appear to be in the plan, which focuses on preventing “unacceptable impacts” to the parks.
Craig Obey of the National Parks Conservation Association said his organization is still suspicious of why the Park Service is choosing to revise the rules when it already rewrote them in 2000.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who sought hearings on the plan after Hoffman’s memo surfaced, said he will continue monitoring the effort to rewrite the guidelines. He said Senate hearings have been tentatively set for the second week of November.
The Park Service is seeking public comment for 90 days.
