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Markets and Political Correctness

February 21, 2005

In Yellowstone National Park, the free market is speaking.

That should be a source of immense satisfaction for Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who believes that private industry should have more, not less influence over public lands management.

Except that the market is showing signs of not being politically correct by Norton's lights.

For Norton, the politically correct way to visit the park during the winter is aboard a snowmobile. The administration, a friend of motorized recreation interests, wants to keep snowmobiles in America's oldest and most celebrated national park, despite the National Park Service's studies concluding that Yellowstone would be better off without the machines.

Last week, Norton tooled around Yellowstone on a snowmobile. She also sampled a tour aboard a snow coach, a kind of bus that is less problematic for the park's air quality, wildlife, and natural soundscape. Norton said the snowmobile ride was "great." She said the snow coach ride was merely "ordinary."

Despite Norton's dissing of snow coaches, Yellowstone's winter market is turning away from snowmobiles. Snowmobilers still outnumber snow coach customers, but snowmobile entries into the park's main entrance at West Yellowstone have fallen 70 percent from two years ago. Perhaps snowmobilers chafe under the rule requiring them to be accompanied by commercial guides, a rule Norton wants to loosen. Meanwhile, the snow coach business is up a robust 20 percent. In addition, more visitors are seeing the park aboard cross-country skis.

Yellowstone tour businesses are responding to changing customer preferences. If the trend continues, the market may push snowmobiles out of Yellowstone -- and there is nothing that the politically correct Gale Norton could do about it.