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02-10-2008, 09:16 PM
The Battle of the Mowers
Wednesday, 26th April, 2006
In the United States it's been called one of the fiercest political battles environmental regulators have ever faced: the Battle of the Motor Mowers. And a second front could soon open in Australia.
Victa's top of the range Razor with its "smooth and powerful XTS60 Briggs & Stratton 4-stroke engine"
The difference of opinion is over the air pollution created by motor mowers. The California Air Resources Board says the modern mower engine creates 93 times more smog making emissions from a gallon of petrol than 2006 model cars. According to the New York Times, in California, lawn mowers provided more than 2 percent of the smog-forming pollution from all engines.
The regulators want to clean up the exhaust by fitting mowers with small catalystic converters. Briggs & Stratton, the dominant mower engine maker which supplies Australia's famous Victa, vigorously opposes the new requirement.
Acting as peacemaker in the US dispute is the Federal Government's Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) which must approve the scheduled California tightening of the emission requirements for small engines.
Playing the defensive general for Briggs & Stratton is Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Republican from Missouri where two lawn mower motor factories are located. The Senator believes the proposed new standards would increase costs to the point where manufacturing would be moved to China.
Senator Bond's first weapon was to have Congress insert provisions in to appropriations legislation that required the E.P.A. to satisfy itself that the California regulations would not entrail safety risks. Other States were prevented from adopting the Californian regulations. Then last year, according to The New York Times, his amendments to appropriations legislation required the E.P.A. to study whether any tough regulations - California's or the federal agency's - would spawn dangerous new fire-prone mowers.
The E.P.A. has now reported favourably on the Californian proposal's safety and the National Academy of Sciences hs praised the state's regulatory procedures.
The war continues and Australian environmental authorities should be watching with interest. The Commonwealth Department of the Environment reported back in June 2002 that an often overlooked source of air pollution is lawnmowers. "Two and fourstroke petrol engine lawnmowers do not have any pollution control technology such as catalytic converters" the Department acknowledged in its Status Report to the Community: Living Cities - Air Toxics Program. Its suggestions for dealing with the problem were hardly radical. The report suggested that "if the lawn area is not too large, maybe an electric mower or a push mower could be used. " It listed the chemicals emitted when mowing the lawns as including:
Benzene
1,3-Butadiene
Lead and compounds
Zinc and compounds
Sulfur dioxide
The Victorian State Environment Protection Authority in a report on air quality in the Port Phillip region in 2000 referred to strategies adopted overseas (primarily in the US) to reduce lawn mower emissions that included the adoption of emissions standards for lawn mower engines, buy-back schemes for old mowers and information and education programs. It said:
Regulations or standards governing lawn mower engines do not exist in Australia . However, most four-stroke engines are imported with US standards certification and there would not seem to be a pressing need to establish an Australian Standard for such mowers. Two-stroke engines assembled locally are unlikely to meet US standards. Consequently, it may be desirable to consider the emissions performance of two-stroke mowers, with a view to determining whether regulation is justified. This would most practically be pursued at the national level, through the development of an Australian Standard and formal recognition of the standard by jurisdictions.
Wednesday, 26th April, 2006
In the United States it's been called one of the fiercest political battles environmental regulators have ever faced: the Battle of the Motor Mowers. And a second front could soon open in Australia.
Victa's top of the range Razor with its "smooth and powerful XTS60 Briggs & Stratton 4-stroke engine"
The difference of opinion is over the air pollution created by motor mowers. The California Air Resources Board says the modern mower engine creates 93 times more smog making emissions from a gallon of petrol than 2006 model cars. According to the New York Times, in California, lawn mowers provided more than 2 percent of the smog-forming pollution from all engines.
The regulators want to clean up the exhaust by fitting mowers with small catalystic converters. Briggs & Stratton, the dominant mower engine maker which supplies Australia's famous Victa, vigorously opposes the new requirement.
Acting as peacemaker in the US dispute is the Federal Government's Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) which must approve the scheduled California tightening of the emission requirements for small engines.
Playing the defensive general for Briggs & Stratton is Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Republican from Missouri where two lawn mower motor factories are located. The Senator believes the proposed new standards would increase costs to the point where manufacturing would be moved to China.
Senator Bond's first weapon was to have Congress insert provisions in to appropriations legislation that required the E.P.A. to satisfy itself that the California regulations would not entrail safety risks. Other States were prevented from adopting the Californian regulations. Then last year, according to The New York Times, his amendments to appropriations legislation required the E.P.A. to study whether any tough regulations - California's or the federal agency's - would spawn dangerous new fire-prone mowers.
The E.P.A. has now reported favourably on the Californian proposal's safety and the National Academy of Sciences hs praised the state's regulatory procedures.
The war continues and Australian environmental authorities should be watching with interest. The Commonwealth Department of the Environment reported back in June 2002 that an often overlooked source of air pollution is lawnmowers. "Two and fourstroke petrol engine lawnmowers do not have any pollution control technology such as catalytic converters" the Department acknowledged in its Status Report to the Community: Living Cities - Air Toxics Program. Its suggestions for dealing with the problem were hardly radical. The report suggested that "if the lawn area is not too large, maybe an electric mower or a push mower could be used. " It listed the chemicals emitted when mowing the lawns as including:
Benzene
1,3-Butadiene
Lead and compounds
Zinc and compounds
Sulfur dioxide
The Victorian State Environment Protection Authority in a report on air quality in the Port Phillip region in 2000 referred to strategies adopted overseas (primarily in the US) to reduce lawn mower emissions that included the adoption of emissions standards for lawn mower engines, buy-back schemes for old mowers and information and education programs. It said:
Regulations or standards governing lawn mower engines do not exist in Australia . However, most four-stroke engines are imported with US standards certification and there would not seem to be a pressing need to establish an Australian Standard for such mowers. Two-stroke engines assembled locally are unlikely to meet US standards. Consequently, it may be desirable to consider the emissions performance of two-stroke mowers, with a view to determining whether regulation is justified. This would most practically be pursued at the national level, through the development of an Australian Standard and formal recognition of the standard by jurisdictions.