Not 780. Not Even One.

The Bush administration should give up its crusade to keep noisy, smelly snowmobiles running around Yellowstone National Park each winter’s day. They don’t belong, period. Not the 493 once proposed in the park. Not the 780 allowed by a federal judge in Wyoming. Not the 720 the National Park Service now proposes for the coming winter. Not one.

The administration keeps struggling to justify snowmobiles in Yellowstone. Public comment on its latest labored scheme ends today. The politicized National Park Service ignores its own findings that snowmobiles are incompatible with the winter wilderness and violate air quality and noise pollution standards. And after all, snowmobilers can zip through hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest just outside the park.

The battle is also being endlessly fought in the courts. A federal judge in Washington found in favor of a planned phaseout. A federal judge in Cheyenne questioned the procedure the Clinton administration used to come up with the ban. Final rulings in both cases are expected soon.

The Bush administration has claimed that the ban would devastate the winter tourist business in West Yellowstone and at other park entry points. But think: One of the grandest environmental successes in recent years was the reintroduction of the wolf to Yellowstone, over local opposition. Now it is among the park’s strongest tourism draws. The restoration of peace and serenity to Yellowstone in winter would be another popular victory, and a marketable choice.