“How does this affect the rest of the public visiting a park? We want to make sure everyone has a great experience,” she added. “What does (an eBike) do to everyone else’s experience there? That’s why there needs to be a rulemaking and public comment. Depending on what this policy says, it could be completely violating the Park Service’s own regulations and policies.”
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility went to court over the Park Service’s action, and that led to last May’s ruling against the agency.
“[T]he Smith Directive attempted to avoid conducting any environmental analysis because the park units would do so, and the park units in turn largely declined to conduct additional analysis because the Smith Directive had already suggested that the change was minimal,” Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote in ordering the NEPA review.