What People Are Saying:

"This is, sadly, another step along the path of turning our national treasures into corporate booty. We support scientific research in the parks, but we are against commercializing the parks and their wildlife. The purpose of the Parks is not Business."
— Beth Burrows, Director, Edmonds Institute

"Legally the National Park System is not set up to be a commercial resource base, but the Administration seems dead set in favor of opening up the parks to commercial extraction."
— Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the International Center for Technology Assessment

"There are commercial activities in the Parks. There are hotels and guides and gas stations but all those are in direct support of visitor services, a primary purpose of the Parks."
— Mike Bader, former Park employee

"The public needs to remember that Yellowstone and the other national parks were designated as parks to protect them from exploitation. We don't want to turn back the clock by exploiting them now."
— Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies

"The NPS must be very careful that private commerce does not distort the preservation mission, or the ethics of its public servants. Gaining some funds from possibly secret deals is not worth either."
— Frank Buono, former NPS employee now on the board of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)