Fire Island National Seashore News Release

 For Immediate Release
Constantine Dillon 631 289-4810 

NPS to Hold Public Meeting on Revision of Fire Island Driving Regulations

 The National Park Service (NPS) will commence the development of new regulations for off-road driving at Fire Island National Seashore using Negotiated Rule Making.  The first meeting of the committee will be June 28-29. The public meeting will begin at 9:00 at the Dowling College NAT Center located on the William Floyd Parkway in Shirley, New York.  Negotiated Rule Making is a process that allows private citizens to participate in revising federal regulations. 

Fire Island National Seashore Superintendent Constantine J. Dillon explained: “the off-road driving regulations, last revised in 1987, are out of date and difficult to administer. Our hope is to draft revised regulations that will protect park resources and result in a simpler and less cumbersome procedure.” Negotiated rulemaking is an opportunity to try a more collaborative approach to creating new rules.  The NPS will maintain the responsibility to prepare effective regulations and will need to do so using the standard regulation writing process should consensus not be reached.  This process will address only the driving regulations relative to the communities within Fire Island National Seashore, and not the recreational driving by fisherman.

 The initial meeting will include discussion and adoption of organizational protocols, development of an agenda for later meetings, presentation and discussion on applicable laws, regulations, policies and data, discussion of committee member’s ideas for improving management of off-road vehicles, and discussion of agenda for next meeting and tasks between sessions.  Subsequent meetings are scheduled for July 26 - 27, 2002 at the Dowling College campus in Oakdale and September 13 - 14, 2002, again at the Brookhaven NAT campus.  Directions to the meeting:

 From Sunrise Highway (State Route 27) go north on the William Floyd Parkway. Follow signs to the NAT center, located on the east side of the Parkway between Sunrise Highway and the Long Island Expressway.

 From the Long Island Expressway (I-495) go south on the William Floyd Parkway. Follow signs to the NAT center, located on the east side of the Parkway between the Long Island Expressway and the Sunrise Highway.

 All meetings are open to the public. However, only persons assigned to the committee may participate in the discussions. Interested persons may make brief oral/written presentations to the Committee during the meetings or file written statements. Such presentations may be made to the Committee during the Public Comment Periods of the meeting, or in writing to the Park Superintendent at the above address at least seven days prior to the meeting.

 The Committee was established pursuant to the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 (5 U.S.C. 561-570). The purpose of the Committee is to advise the National Park Service with regard to proposed rulemaking governing off-road vehicle use at Fire Island National Seashore. Twenty-four persons were appointed to the committee by Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton in March 2002.  A complete list of members and additional information can be found at the Fire Island National Seashore website www.nps.gov/fiis.

Driving regulations for Fire Island National Seashore are regulated through Title 36, Section 7.20 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The last time this regulation was revised was in 1987.  The committee is composed of individuals representing various interests with a stake in driving within Fire Island National Seashore.  Membership was identified through a series of meetings conducted by the Consensus Building Institute (CBI) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a non-profit mediation firm. 

 Negotiated Rule Making (also called regulatory negotiation or reg-neg for short) is a relatively new law allowing the public to participate in writing federal regulations. In the reg-neg process, those parties who will be significantly affected by a regulation are invited by the agency to participate in a working group to negotiate possible new regulations.  This negotiating committee, including the NPS and local governments, seeks to reach consensus on regulations that all can live with.  This allows key interests of stakeholders to be met through dialogue and negotiation, rather than through the traditional process, which can be adversarial and litigious.  NPS