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# Can a Park Superintendent Write a Crime? The Yellowstone Case Testing the Compendium
- URL: https://blog.puzzlegroup.com/yellowstone-compendium-constitutional-challenge-pulliam/
- Published: 2026-09-29T14:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-29T14:00:00.000Z
- Description: An Oregon visitor cited for fishing a closed river and driving a pickup on an over-snow road argues the rules he broke were never lawfully made. A long shot with a serious pedigree, and a lesson about every park ticket: most are written under a document the superintendent signs.
- Author: Aaron Herzberg
- Tags: National Parks Defense, Yellowstone, Park Citations, Violation Notice

In December 2025 an Oregon man named Tate Pulliam drove into Yellowstone in an ordinary pickup, on a road that in winter is open only to snowmobiles and snowcoaches, and fished a river that was closed for the season. He was cited three times: twice for the fishing, including fishing without the park's permit, and once for the road. Each is a petty offense with a maximum of six months, which is where the eighteen months you may have read about comes from.

Most people in his position pay or plead. Pulliam, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, filed a motion to dismiss in April arguing that the rules he broke were never lawfully made. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Hambrick, who hears nearly every Yellowstone case, set it for a hearing in May. I have not seen a published ruling as I write this, and whatever she decides is likely to be appealed by the losing side. The argument is worth understanding anyway, because it explains something about the piece of paper in your glove box.

## Where a park rule comes from

Congress passed the National Park Service Organic Act and told the Secretary of the Interior to make regulations for the parks. The Secretary's regulations are Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations, and they are the ones cited on most notices: speeding under § 4.21, wildlife under § 2.2, thermal areas under Yellowstone's own § 7.13\. Those rules went through notice-and-comment rulemaking and were published in the Federal Register.

But a great deal of what a visitor can and cannot do in a particular park is not in the CFR. It is in the Superintendent's Compendium, a document each park's superintendent signs and updates under authority the CFR delegates to him: 36 CFR § 1.5 lets a superintendent close an area or restrict an activity, and § 1.5(f) makes it an offense to violate the closure. Yellowstone's compendium is where you find the twenty-five-yard and one-hundred-yard wildlife distances, the winter road designations, the fishing seasons and permit rules, the drone ban, the bear management area closures, and the rule that food in a thermal area has to be in a pack. None of that was published for comment. The superintendent decided it, wrote it down, and posted it.

## The argument

Pulliam's lawyers make two constitutional points. The first is nondelegation: Congress can make conduct a crime, but it cannot hand that power to an agency with no meaningful limits, and the Organic Act's instruction to prescribe the regulations the Secretary "considers necessary or proper for the use and management" of the parks is, they say, exactly that. The second is the Appointments Clause: a park superintendent is a career employee, not an officer appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and an employee cannot exercise the kind of authority that turns a fishing trip into a federal crime. The foundation's own summary puts it in one line: "Only Congress, not unaccountable bureaucrats, can decide which actions are criminally punishable." The U.S. Attorney's Office has said it disagrees and that the superintendent acted within his authority.

These are not new theories, and they have been losing in the courts for decades, but they have drawn more interest at the Supreme Court in the last few years than at any time in living memory, which is why a public-interest firm chose a fishing case to carry them. Judge Hambrick is also the judge who handled the case of the trail runner cited for cutting the switchbacks on the Grand Teton, a case that ended with a presidential pardon after a conviction, so she has seen what happens when a petty-offense case becomes a cause.

## What it means for an ordinary notice

Not much, yet, and I want to be careful about that. A pending motion in someone else's case is not a defense you can write on the back of your violation notice. If you were cited for approaching a bison, driving a closed road, or fishing without a permit, the compendium is the law in the District of Wyoming today, and it will be the law the day you appear. If Pulliam wins at the trial level, the government will appeal, and the compendium will stay in force while it does. If he loses, the argument is preserved for a higher court and every other defendant is exactly where he was.

What the case does do is make a distinction that matters in every park file. Some counts on a notice are CFR counts, made by the Secretary through rulemaking. Some are compendium counts, made by the superintendent under § 1.5, charged as a closure violation, and carrying $100 on the collateral schedule. A ranger often writes both for the same conduct: a wildlife distance violation as a closure, and the same walk as "intentional disturbing" of wildlife under § 2.2(a)(2), which is a mandatory appearance. Which count survives, and which one you resolve, is the case. The compendium counts are also the ones where the government has to prove the closure was properly made and posted, that the public had notice, and that what you did is what the closure actually forbids. Those are ordinary arguments, made in ordinary cases, and they win more often than the constitutional ones.

## The practical lesson

Read the regulation number on the notice. If it says 1.5(f), look up what the compendium says and when it said it; the document is on the park's website and it changes from year to year. If it says 2.2 or 4.21 or 7.13, you are dealing with the CFR, and the text is the text. Either way, the question of whether the rule was lawfully made is a question for a courtroom in Cheyenne or Denver on somebody else's case. The question of whether you broke it, and what the resolution should be, is yours, and it is decided at Mammoth, by video or in person, on the facts.

This article is general information about federal park regulations, not advice about your case. The Pulliam case was pending at the time of writing; the status may have changed by the time you read this.