Dubya gets snowmobile, wreaks havoc

"A Snowmobile for George" is a new election-year documentary. Here's a description from the film's web site:

When President Bush reversed regulations that would have banned the two-stroke snowmobile, filmmaker Todd Darling asked the question: why would he bring back a machine that pollutes dozens of times more than any automobile? Baffled by this regulatory change, he straps his own family’s sled onto a trailer, and drives across America looking for the answer to just why exactly did President Bush change that rule?

Along the way he digs into "de-regulation" and looks at how environmental rule changes have affected a wide range of Americans.

Yurok fishermen on the Klamath River along the Oregon/California border, suffer calamitous losses to their fishery when Karl Rove helps re-write the rules about how much water a fish needs.

Cowboys in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming are now locked in a range war with oil companies because political appointees to the Interior Department stopped the enforcement of clean water rules.

Firemen and paramedics in New York City suffer serious health problems because the White House suppressed key environmental rules during the 9/11 clean-up.

And, in Washington DC the filmmaker meets some lobbyists, and discovers a pattern to this de-regulation that amazingly enough hinges on the Bush Administration's view of the snowmobile.

Thanks to the meltdown on Wall Street, the phrase "de-regulation" has re-entered the popular imagination. Now find out what happens when de-regulation lands right on your doorstep.

You can see the film in the WY/CO/MT region during the next two weeks. here's the schedule:

Oct. 8, Denver, CO, Starz Entertainment Center, "The Election Year Series," presented by The Denver Film Society, 7 p.m.
Oct. 9, Laramie, WY, film and discussion with filmmaker, 7 p.m., Rm. 129, Classroom Bldg., UW

Oct. 10, Sheridan, WY, WYO Theater, 42 N. Main, presented by Powder River Basin Resource Council, 7 p.m., http://www.wyotheater.com/

Oct. 16, Fort Collins, CO, Lyric Theater, http://www.lyriccinemacafe.com/

Oct. 17, Billings, MT, Billings at MSU, time and venue TBD, presented by Northern Plains Resource Council, http://www.northernplains.org/

Feb. 13-22, 2009, Big Sky Fill Festival, Missoula MT, Roxy Theatre