(2008) Writer/director/producer Todd Darling opens his sardonic documentary with Mark Twain's sardonic comment: "The political and commercial morals of the United States are not mere food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."

Beginning from his home in the California Sierras, driving to San Francisco; Klamath Falls, Ore.; Lake Tahoe; Reno, Nev.; Yellowstone National Park; Sheridan, Casper, and Gillette, Wy.; Thief River Falls, Minn.; Houghton, Mich.; New York City; and Washington, DC, towing his two-stroke Polaris Super Sport (steer horns affixed on the front, named Sindy along the way) snowmobile on a trailer, Todd seeks the reason for why President George W. Bush resurrected the two-stroke snowmobile engine, which produces 27 times as much carbon emissions as an automobile (13,500 parts per million vs 500 ppm) after briefly phasing it out.

In doing so, Todd asks: "Did President Bush protect the public interest?" Los Angeles Times reporter Tom Hamburger provides additional commentary throughout.

In San Francisco, he meets with Sean Smith of Blue Water Network, an advocate of cleaner-burning, four-stroke engines; in Michigan he attends the clean-snowmobile challenge where college students compete, cutting emissions by 90% vs the industry's claim of reducing engine exhaust by only 30% by 2010. (No one from Minnesota's snowmobile manufacturers, Arctic and Polaris, would grant him an interview.)

On the Klamath River he discovers another story of rule changes from 2001-2002, involving a conflict between Yurok Tribe salmon fishermen and potato farmers ("People before fish") up river, demanding more water for irrigation during a drought while the largest fish kill occurred down river. President Bush's political advisor Karl Rove influenced negotiations taking place in the Dept of the Interior (headed by Sec Gale Norton) between the feuding groups with the aim of mobilizing the Republican base.

In Lake Tahoe, Wayne Fischer, one of 1.6 million registered snowmobile owners, speaking of his "right to ride," refers to the complaints by skiers, snowboarders, and sledders of "pollution and noise" as just excuses to ban snowmobiles from recreational areas.

While admitting that at one time the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone got out of hand, hotel and restaurant owner Clyde Seely, who rents snowmobiles, refuses to allow that the machines, as scientists and park rangers attest, cause unnecessary stress on the wildlife, especially during winter. Before an exclusion rule on snowmobiles could go into effect, the snowmobile industry sued: "the ban never took effect." The Bush administration, ignoring science, favored snowmobilers having fun.

In Wyoming, where Republicans outnumber Democrats the way antelope outnumber people, landowners, such as George Smith of Sheridan and Ed Swartz of Gillette, explain how they have rights only to the surface of their land while the mineral rights remain in the possession of the federal government, which leases the mineral rights to oil and gas companies. Receiving no compensation, ranchers and farmers can only groan when the drilling rigs descend upon them, penetrating the soil for coal-bed methane and wastefully disgorging underground water - lowering the water table and ruining the top soil with high-sodium runoff. Once again the dispute between cowboys and the oil companies (which declined to discuss the subject) reveals government favoritism (appointees with cozy connections to the oil industry), preferring "industry-friendly rules" favoring economic cost benefits (for which "science and the public paid the cost").

In New York City, Todd uncovers yet another instance of politics trumping public health in the EPA's announcement following 9/11 that the air around ground zero was safe to breathe when in fact the agency under Christie Todd Whitman knew otherwise. Issuing no warnings to first responders, clean-up crews, residents, and office workers, instead James Connaughton altered the text in the EPA's official report on air quality, in effect lying to the public. Thus, "heroes became martyrs."

Finally, arriving in the nation's capital, Todd meets with two lobbyists: Kristen Brengel with the Wilderness Society, opposed to the two-stroke engines, and lawyer Bill Horn, representing the snowmobile industry, who lacking a background in science was nevertheless appointed to a science-advisory board.

With data mining and regulatory favors from the Bush administration, Karl Rove employed a voter vault, targeting snowmobile owners (Todd also received a letter) to generate campaign contributions and a nonexistent "right to ride" among enthusiastic users. Todd concludes that President Bush "didn't buy the science, he bought the votes." Passing Crawford, Texas, on his way home, where he put Sindy (1994-2008) to rest, Todd summarizes his findings that the Bush administration suppressed science, built a political fortress with favors, and commercialized public resources. Deregulation taken to extremes, permitting businesses to operate without restraints, avers an interviewee, leads to fascism.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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