Mass-marketed recreational "off-road vehicles" (ORVs) such as snowmobiles, dune buggies, trail bikes, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, and four-wheel drive cars and light trucks are a comparatively recent phenomenon. These descendants of the World War II "jeep" are designed for overland use in addition to travel on paved roads and highways. While the 5 million ORVs now in use allow affluent Americans to "get back" quickly to natural settings otherwise inaccessible except by days of hiking, they also unfortunately despoil soil, destroy vegetation, disrupt wildlife habitats with noise pollution, and facilitate poaching, illegal logging, and vandalism on both public and private lands. One of the most disturbing examples thus far has been the removal of pre-Columbian artifacts and the defacing of primitive cliff dweller paintings on remote public lands in the Mojave Desert by groups of ORV riders.

The widespread use of ORVs on federal lands and the well-documented¹ havoc which this use wreaks on the environment was the impetus behind the issuance of Executive Order No. 11644 on February 9, 1972.² The Order was an attempt to establish policies and procedures for controlling the use of off-road vehicles on federal lands. Basically it opts for controlled use of federal lands by ORVs, rather than for non-use, but makes an effort to accord environmental concerns their rightful place in the balancing of interests involved in determining the nature of such controls. Acknowledging that widespread ORV use on the public lands frequently conflicts with wise resource management practices, environmental values, and other kinds of recreational activities, E.O. No. 11644 recognized the need for a unified federal policy regarding such use and directed federal agencies to develop rules governing ORV use in lands under their jurisdiction.