The Environmental Protection Agency cleared the way Friday for regulations to limit pollution from lawn mowers, jet skis and similar small machines.
Devices that clean the engines' emissions do not pose a safety problem, the EPA said. Without new pollution controls, engines under 50 horsepower would account for 18 percent of smog-forming emissions from mobile sources by 2020, the agency has estimated.
Opposition from Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., whose home state has two factories owned by lawn mower engine maker Briggs & Stratton Corp., has delayed rules to regulate small-engine pollution.
After first trying to bar California from implementing its own small-engine rules, Bond last year insisted on a study of whether adding pollution-reducing catalytic converters to small engines could create fire risks.
The EPA study released Friday concluded there are no such risks and said there can even be safety benefits from adding catalytic converters.
The conclusion means EPA can move forward to issue nationwide regulations for pollution from small engines. The agency also can grant California the waiver it is seeking to implement its own small-engine pollution rules.
EPA spokesman John Millett said the agency should be able to take both steps by the end of the year.
Agency investigations indicate the pollution standards can be implemented "without an incremental increase in the risk of fire or burn to the consumer" and can even lead to "an incremental decrease in such risk," the study said.
"EPA's thorough safety study shows that not only will California's proposed small engine regulations significantly improve our air quality, but they also present no safety concerns whatsoever for consumers and in fact may improve the safety of lawnmowers and other small engines," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has tangled with Bond over the issue for nearly three years.
Patricia Hanz, a spokeswoman for Briggs & Stratton in Milwaukee, called the EPA study "neither comprehensive nor complete" and said the company was waiting for results from a different safety study that includes participation by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, an industry trade association.
Briggs & Stratton officials have said that redesigning their engines to comply with tougher regulations would be so costly they might have to move production overseas. The company employs more than 1,000 workers in Missouri.
There was no immediate comment from Bond.
California has the authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own pollution standards, and other states can put in place California's regulations. Bond tried to include language in a 2004 spending bill to block California from setting its own small-engine rules, but Feinstein objected. Bond then agreed to language letting California implement its own small-engine rule but requiring a federal standard to be set for other states.



Associated Press Writer Sam Hananel contributed to this report.

By Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer


(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

 

What happens when grass becomes weeds because a simple lawnmower is too expensive?

 

I'm going to reply to this before it gets moved.

I can say, that my dads old lawnmower, produces more in a hour, than my fullsized pickup will do in a entire day. I think that any enviormental laws that limit emissions would be a good thing. JMO.

However, with many of the things that the bush adminstration has taken away as far as enviormental laws, this is one of the only things I think they have done right.

 

Last year I purchased a Stihl trimmer, made sure it was over 40cc's (40.2cc's) as above 40.00cc's no catalytic converter required, runs great. This year need another smaller Stihl 36.3cc's it came with a converter and ran like crap that lasted 5 minutes tops before catalytic was gutted, runs great now.
Why don't they go after big factories that pollute by pumping thousands of tons a day of into the atmosphere?
What about automoblie manufactures getting pollution credits on scraping cars program so they can polllute more sell more?

Removed by Admin: inappropriate comment for a family site l

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I know stihl had been talking about doing that since 95 but haven't had one come through my shop yet.Its already hard to get some of these newer weed trimmers and lawn mowers to run good because they are already running very lean and all it takes is a speck of dirt in the carb and and they wont run worth a crap.This would hurt briggs because its taking them almost 20yrs to get all there ohv engines to replace there L-head engines and most of them are junk.

 

I rode a bicycle that was powered by a 33 cc Robin 4 stroke, small with mid range torque, top end flat dead over a 2 stroke. Back in the 60's dad and I helped a lawnmower shop friend with motor tune ups, newer B&S as you said are crap i'll agree. You sure can't beat a Honda for endurance, noise, vibration and fuel consumption, too bad B&S hasn't improved with time.
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Next thing you know they will be requiring lawnmowers to be fuel injected and computer controlled. I guess I will have to kill all my grass and put down astro turf. Wonder how well a computer would do in the dusty conditions a lawnmower gets into.

 

Are you kidding me 3 years they have been "Tangeling" over this issue.


"What about infrastructure?"
" Oh don't worry about roads and such lets get this lawnmower restriction passed. It makes more sense."

 

Well, good to see the Missourian knows what he's doing.

Ryan

 

Next thing we'll have a law were a catalytic converter will be shoved up our rear before you pass gas.
I ran the 95 Rover V-8 MPI with gutted cats a few months because they rattled, that motor stunk as bad as the 68 FE motor so cats must work ok on bigger motors but come on, a weed eater motor of 30cc's or a lawnmower motor.
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