Dick Cheney's retirement: Court-watch

by Mark Silva

Tough news for Dick Cheney - and word of interest to Todd Palin as well -- from the federal court in Washington, courtesy of our court-watching Countdown to Crawford friends.

The Bush administration has attempted to expand access for snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, after first President Nixon and then President Carter imposed limits on off-road vehicles in the national parks.

But now, as President Bush prepares to leave office, Countdown's Jim Gerstenzang reports on a Washington Post report, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has tossed a National Park Service plan crafted in 2007. It would have allowed 540 recreational snowmobiles and 83 snow coaches a day to enter Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway.

The Grand Tetons tower above Jackson Hole, where the soon-retiring Cheney maintains a secluded home deep in a heavily forested spread, Countdown notes.

The plan developed by the Bush administration "is arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by the record, and contrary to law," opined Sullivan, nominated to the federal court by President Clinton, after serving in District of Columbia superior and appeals courts to which he was named by Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. The plan "clearly elevates use over conservation of park resources and values and fails to articulate why the Plan's 'major adverse impacts' are 'necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of the park.''

Appeal, vows Ed Klim, president of the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association, telling the New York Times: "This is not the end of the issue.''

Gerstenzang notes that a certain "First Dude'' - Alaska's - also may be watching this court case. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband Todd, husband of the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, is a champion snowmobile racer.

(Todd and Sarah Palin at the start of the Iron Dog snowmobile race in 2007. Al Grillo / Associated Press.)