EPA Clears Way to Regulate Small Engines

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- 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 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.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-mowers-smog,0,3776207.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Mind_your_head]

1. Wait a minute.......

Is this just some ploy to get even MORE US Manufacturers to close down????

Legislators have allowed an individual to get a $2,000 tax deduction if they buy a hybrid, yet if you buy a Hummer you are allowed up to a $60,000 deduction????

How come legislators aren't focusing on the BIG ENGINE POLLUTION CONTRIBUTORS???? GM, et al..... ???????

They're focusing on lawnmowers????? And lawnmower manufacturers? Who was it? Snapper, I believe, who refused to give in to WalMart's terms of creating an inferior product to 'compete' with the other inferior products (hence lower priced) that Walmart demanded? This is from that same 'issue'. :mad:

[FloridaPat]

2. Balderdash. 18% - no way.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Under 50 hp would include a lot of minibikes, scooters, etc., ...

Maybe someone who knows more about engines than I do can explain it, but IIRC these small "two-cycle" engines produce a much larger amount of pollution per horsepower, so they are 'over-represented', so to speak. Also note that's 18% of mobile sources, not all sources. And of course they're extrapolating forward FOURTEEN YEARS -- how accurate is that likely to be?

[Solo_in_MD]

4. IIRC many Harleys dont put out 50HP

Fortuately for the rest of us there are Japanese and German motocycles.