Posted on 10/13/2021 6:06:41 AM PDT by blam
California took another step toward its goal of ridding the state of all gas-powered engines thanks to a new bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday.
The new law will ban the sale of all off-road, gas-powered engines, including generators, lawn equipment, pressure washers, chainsaws, weed trimmers, and even golf carts. Under the new law , these machines must be zero-emissions, meaning they will have to be either battery-powered or plug-in, according to the Los Angeles Times .
“This is a pretty modest approach to trying to limit the massive amounts of pollution that this equipment emits, not to mention the health impact on the workers who are using it constantly,” Marc Berman, the bill’s author, told the outlet. “It’s amazing how people react when they learn how much this equipment pollutes, and how much smog forming and climate changing emissions that small off-road engine equipment creates.”
The new law is expected to affect nearly 50,000 small businesses . California’s budget includes $30 million to help professional landscapers and gardeners quit using gas-powered equipment, but even then, the budget is still not capable of bearing the full financial burden.
The National Association of Landscape Professionals also noted how zero-emission commercial equipment is both more expensive and less efficient than gas-powered equipment. A gas-powered riding lawn mower costs between $7,000-$11,000 while the zero-emissions version costs more than twice that amount, according to the outlet.
The new rule will be implemented by January 2024, or as soon as regulators determine is “feasible,” whichever date is later. The California Air Resources Board has already started working on executing the law, which is a lengthy process scheduled to conclude early next year, per the outlet.
Newsom banning futures purchases of gas-powered lawn equipment continues his pursuit of making California run exclusively on green energy. The governor signed an executive order in September 2020 mandating that all of California’s new car sales be zero-emissions models by 2035. The order also requires new bus and truck sales, whenever feasible, to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2045.
Insanity!!!
Imagine owning a lawn service.
New smuggling items, chainsaws and lawnmowers.
Are they going to close the state border to prevent such contraband from coming in?
Imagine a green energy power blackout and it being illegal to own a backup generator.
Exemptions for the rich and their El Salvadoran lawn crews?
Is there provision in the law to prevent bringing in equipment from out of state? Imagine the enforcement difficulty in that.
I predict massive sales of this equipment at the first Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware inside Nevada.
It’s only the portable generators that are affected. Larger whole-house generators are not. The little guy gets screwed, those rich enough to afford the above are fine.
San Francisco’s Berman thinks it is a “modest proposal”.
Man, I’d hate to see his idea of a serious proposal.
How are the lawns for the mega mansions and golf courses going to keep their lawns cut and follow the mandates? Like everything else imposed on the masses, they will have special rules for the elite.
I’m sure there is, they made it illegal to bring ammo in when they started their stupid ammo law.
More laws against Americans while illegals and other criminals can do as they please.
You simply can’t operate a landscaping service with these restrictions. I have several friends who own them.
Mowers, trimmers, blowers often run for 3-4 hours straight and travel all over a neighborhood/church grounds/fairgrounds for miles. They’d need to be recharged several times a day. Where do they do that? And while they’re charging back up, what do the workers do? Also, batteries aren’t as powerful as gas.
There’s NO upside to this.
More reasons to leave California.
I have a friend of mine in San Diego that owns a landscaping service. He is probably ready to personally and permanently ‘recall’ Adolf Newsom...
Checkpoints.
A car full of Illegals approach:
Border agent with purple hair and nose ring: Drive on thru and Bienvenidos to Californiastan! Be sure to fill out your mail-in ballots for harvesting later, hombres!
Everyone else pulls up:
Border agent: You got any fruits, vegetables, banned small gas engines? Did you vote Trump? Like guns, think there’s only two sexes. Turn around and go back, MAGAt!!!
Not officially...
The cops in those areas know which people to hassle and which ones to leave alone though...
Presumably existing equipment will be grandfathered in. So in summer of 2024 how is a Karen supposed to know if her neighbor's weed-trimmer is a year or so old or just smuggled in?
Banning the sale in CA... What about barter? Better yet, what if the owner of a lawn service drives over to Phoenix and buys equipment and comes back?
Does this mean that shipping containers full of equipment imported from China etc. can no longer be shipped through CA? After all, that is technically a "sale" right? At what point does the buyer take possession? On the docks, at a wharehouse? When/where is the "sale" and would such transactions now be illegal?
All fossil fueled "off road" vehicles? Ok, weed trimmers, lawn mowers, power washers, generators, air compressors, saws, rescue equipment, lawn tractors, motorcycles, ATVs, go-karts, RC planes... Boats? Outboards? Backhoes? Bulldozers? Just how broad and ill-conceived is this law?
This will put the small landscaping guy out of business. Where I live there are a lot of lawn services. These guys work hard and struggle to make money. The little guy will have little chance to survive. Which is the intent of course.
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