(The Center Square) – Legislation to restrict the use of gas-powered landscaping equipment in California also would outlaw portable generators in a state only a year removed from rolling power outages amid deadly heat.
Lawmakers have sent Gov. Gavin Newsom Assembly Bill 1346. The bill’s sponsor, Assembly Member Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, said the legislation would phase out the sale of new gas-powered small off-road engines (SOREs) in California.
“Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and other equipment with small gas-powered engines emit staggering levels of air pollution,” Berman said in a statement. “These noisy machines are terribly disruptive to communities across California, and the workers who breathe in exhaust from this equipment day in and day out face disproportionate health risks, including asthma, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.”
Berman said emission from SOREs is double that of passenger cars in California.
Berman said lawmakers earmarked $30 million in the state budget to help small businesses purchase zero-emission replacements. The law would require a state agency to begin the phaseout by July 1, 2022.
Should Newsom sign the bill, which cleared the California State Legislature on Thursday, it could ban another gas-powered necessity: portable generators.
The Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association warned AB 1346 could lead to a ban on the sale of portable generators in California as soon as 2024.
“No matter how well-intentioned this bill might be, it makes a critical error in equating portable generators with other small off-road engine equipment,” said Joseph Harding, technical director of PGMA.
The final amendment of the legislation asks the California Air Resources Board to consider the feasibility of a generator or emergency response phaseout based on the availability of zero-emission options but puts no restriction on banning the machines. A legislative analysis of the bill said generators were the highest source of pollution from SOREs in California.
Harding’s organization is asking for generators to be exempt from the phaseout.
Gas-powered generators proved crucial in August 2020, when a combination of fires, elevated power usage and supplier interruption led to two days of rolling blackouts across California amid a heatwave. Over two days, more than 3 million homes periodically lost power.
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How convenient… Ban the “evil” gas powered engines so your Chinese-produced electrical engines get that business, and your Chinese funders and overlords pay you off handsomely…
Same reason Biden abandoned Afghanistan – the Chinese covet that area’s rare earth minerals for their electric battery industry, and I’m sure pallets of cash are being delivered to Hunter as the front man for the Biden corruption family…
Notice how all these asinine laws are introduced by corrupt, NorCal legislators?? The same crew that had Chinese chauffeurs (Feinstein) , whores (Swallwell) and if we follow the money trail, I’ll bet this bozo is being paid off by the Chinese company that owns e-Go…or one like it…
Namely LITHIUM.
And what does the Democrat Party want to transition Americans into, to replace gas-powered cars?
And what do all batteries need in order to run?
Do y’all see where this is going?
It would also punish every law-abiding Californian who can rub two brain cells together and safely operate these gas-powered generators anywhere.
Idiocy like this is why California is the laughingstock of the free states.
In the southern portion of Riverside county experienced a wildfire and rain damage that left no power and two major roads out of commission for 11or more days a few years ago. Without generators stores banking us mail service nothing would move no gasoline or propane deliveries . CA CARB has approved some generators for sale in California.
Our elected officials are placing too much on the electric power grid you have a bigger population and more strain on the power grid, some of the power lines because of the strain fail.