Yahoo Autos Washington State Wants To Ban Using Gas Powered Landscaping Equipment
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Back when states started tossing around the idea of banning the sale of gas and diesel-powered cars, we were assured of two things. First, the ban would never apply to existing internal combustion vehicles, just the sale of new ones. Second, these bans wouldn’t extend to other gas- and diesel-combusting devices like lawn mowers of generators. Yet lawmakers in the state of Washington want to go after gas-powered landscaping and power equipment with vigor.
Your classic car is just one authoritarian politician away from being seized.
A bill which would go after anyone daring to mow their own lawn using non-electric mower or operate a gas-powered chainsaw has been pre-filed in the state legislature, reports the Daily Caller. In its proposed form, anyone who violates it could be fined up to $10,000 and/or jailed for up to 364 days for each violation.
Predictably, the justification for this heavy-handed legislation is saving the planet. After all, your chainsaw or law mower is fueling climate change, so it’s time to get an inferior and thus benign electrical version.
The target for this ban is 2026, if it can pass the state legislature in its current form. To help landscaping and other businesses comply, the bill proposes a sales tax break on “zero emission landscaping equipment.” My, isn’t that generous?
If you haven’t ever run such a business, being forced to replace functional equipment with all-new stuff that’s notoriously expensive, not to mention figure out how to deal with recharging batteries on the go without using a dirty, awful generator will present huge challenges. It’s not inconceivable that smaller operations will be pushed out of business. So much for sticking up for the little guy.
All this proves to us is the internal combustion ban was never just about cars. We warned that was just the start. It’s landscaping equipment today, your gas stove and water heater tomorrow. In the meantime, the people writing and supporting these laws can pretend their preferred energy generation methods are “clean.”
Image via Erik Mclean
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