ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! EPA to require cat. converters on lawn mowers and rec. vehicles!

Better buy them now folks.....

Here comes the day of the $1000 push mower.....



EPA sets rules for lawn, boat engines
Most non-road motors will be required to add catalytic converters to significantly reduce emissions.


WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled sweeping regulations limiting emissions from small engines in lawn mowers and boats Thursday -- requiring that most small engines have catalytic converters.

The new regulation applies to lawn mowers with a 25-horsepower engine or smaller and will reduce smog-forming emissions by 35 percent. Recreational boats will see a 70 percent reduction in evaporated fuel and NOx emissions.

The EPA has been studying the issue since Congress ordered it to set non-road engine standards in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Draft emission standards were published by the EPA in May 2007; the final rules were released Thursday.


The regulations take effect in 2010 for personal watercraft with inboard or outboard motors and for lawn and garden equipment in 2011.

Lawn-care and boat engines are major emitters of air pollution. The EPA said they account for about a quarter of carbon monoxide and other emissions. Small engines release up to 25 percent of the gasoline unburned in their exhaust. The EPA estimates the new regulations will save 190 million gallons of fuel annually as a result. They will cost the affected manufacturing industries $391 million a year, the EPA estimated.

"These standards help fight smog in our neighborhoods and waterways as we continue to improve the environmental landscape," EPA Administrator Stephen J. Johnson said.

The regulation, which was first proposed in May 2007, mirrors a regulation adopted by California's Air Resources Board. The EPA granted California a waiver in December 2006 to impose its own standards on lawn mowers.

The new standards will annually cut smog-forming volatile organic compounds by 600,000 tons and smog-forming oxides of nitrogen by 150,000 tons, the EPA said.

The EPA estimates that these gasoline engines are responsible for about 15 percent of the nation's hydrocarbon pollution, a key component in "smog." These engines are predominantly used in the summer when smog is an acute health concern.

The EPA said the new regulations would prevent 300 premature deaths and 1,700 hospitalizations annually.

Americans spend 2 billion hours annually using lawn and garden equipment and 500 million hours in recreational boating, according to the EPA.

Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes and is surrounded by the Great Lakes. The state has 950,000 registered recreational boats and ranked third in the nation behind Florida and California, according to a 2006 report from National Marine Manufacturers Association.

There are more than 50 million pieces of lawn and garden equipment in use across the country today, and the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, said one riding lawn mower emits as much hourly pollution as about 34 cars.

"These small engines are big polluters," said Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel of Environmental Defense Fund. "Cleaner lawn mowers means less summertime smog and healthier air for millions of kids. These new clean air standards will reduce dangerous smog pollution from high-emitting gasoline engines while helping to cut costs at the gas pump."