The once-greater State of Minnesota is apparently trying to play catch up to the wokesters in California with a new bill introduced in the state House that would ban gasoline-powered lawn and garden tools.
Minnesota is attempting to follow California’s lead by introducing a bill to ban gasoline-powered lawn and garden tools. [emphasis, links added]
The bill was authored by Democrat state Reps. Jerry Newton of Coon Rapids and Heather Edelson of Edina and would take effect on January 1, 2025, with a prohibition on “fossil fuel-powered” lawn and garden tools that requires “new lawn and garden equipment sold, offered for sale, or distributed in or into Minnesota must be powered solely by electricity.”
The common tools covered by the ban would be “equipment powered by a spark ignition engine rated at or below 19 kilowatts or 25 gross horsepower” such as a lawnmower, leaf blower, hedge clipper, chainsaw, lawn edger, string trimmer, or brush cutter.
So what is #Minnesota up to? Banning the sale of lawnmower and other lawn implements. pic.twitter.com/2pPKSQvYKz
— Cara Schulz (@cara_schulz) February 14, 2023
While plug-in or battery-powered hedge trimmers, lawnmowers, or leaf blowers may be a tenable option for those like Reps. Newton and Edelson who live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities or don’t have much of a yard, most residents in the rest of Minnesota would find non-fossil fuel-powered lawn tools useless for their properties.
And likely put a serious dent in the profitability of lawn and garden service companies that won’t be able to do as much per day due to downtime needed to recharge their tools or the cost of needing twice the amount of equipment to do the same amount of work as gas-powered tools.
As a writeup in the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment notes of the proposed ban on “fossil fuel-powered” equipment:
According to Bob Vila’s website, this would effectively outlaw any push-mower that is gas-powered, and it would impact most riding lawnmowers, which use engines topping out at 24 horsepower, as well.
While electric leaf blowers or hedge clippers may work fine for urban and suburban dwellers, these tools are entirely insufficient for anyone who needs to do serious work out in the country. Felling trees or cutting firewood on a wood lot with a battery-powered electric chainsaw? Give me a break.
This legislation wisely leaves snowblowers off the list of contraband, but its introduction demonstrates that urban and suburban liberals have no idea how rural Minnesotans live their lives, and it suggests that they don’t care to learn.
It’s hard to imagine hunters (such as those in this writer’s family back home in Minnesota) would be able to find a plug for their electric chainsaw while miles deep into grouse country in order to chop some trees for fire, shelter, or other needs.
The only option would be to plug their “green” electric chainsaw into a gas-powered generator, which defeats the entire purpose while also illustrating one part of climate warriors’ shortsighted do-goodism.
All that electric equipment relies, unsurprisingly, on electricity…which comes from generation plants that are often powered by fossil fuels.
Read rest at Townhall
I love our electric lawn mower. Unlike gasoline models that we have owned in the past, there is never a problem starting it. It gets the job done. However, there are obvious limitations. Despite living on a large acreage, our lawn is small. One charge of the lawn mower is enough for that lawn unless the grass has gotten tall. It is very obvious that the size of a typical lawn would require waiting for additional charges. Some off our neighbors have very large lawns and the only feasible way to cut them is with a riding lawn more. Obviously state Reps. Jerry Newton doesn’t care about people in that situation.
Better battery-powered outdoor power equipment can go all day, I’ve been told. And they’d need to do so. It takes that long to get anything done.
Two-stroke delivers superior power and performance. At times it can cause a problem with exhaust gases in poorly ventilated areas, such as against a tall hedge where these gases can effectively bounce back at the operator. Another disadvantage is in the inability to stop-start easily in intermittent operation.
Overall, though, the difference is stark in favour of petroleum grunt, especially if the job is a major one or at all remote. It is mostly on small domestic jobs that this advantage is less obvious and there cost comes in to play anyway. Two-stroke done properly is cheaper.
It is the lesser-skilled operator with little mechanical ability that is a prime target for the green changeover, as it is with those who like to parade an eco-charade of care.
In Victoria, Australia, legislation now severely restricts refuelling chainsaws while cutting wood on public land, however. The banning of two-stroke is not that far away. I grew my own trees to avoid that possibility, but they have ways of countering that coming too, or already here.
Despite the hype, gasoline and diesel fuel will be available far into the future. If you recognize the utility of today’s power tools, stock up on your favourite models. They might not be available, gone like two stroke dirt bikes. If you’re content with the second – best tool for the job, you might be interested in a battery powered generator.
How do you know it will be “available far into the future”?
I’m not talking of potential supply. I’m talking of usage bans. They’re definitely coming. Too many underestimate the level of control of those who pull Biden’s many strings and overestimate the control of just about anyone else.
We are well on the way to the point where divine intervention of the kind found in Revelation is necessary because mankind is utterly incapable of fixing the wound to humanity that multiple, multiple generations have allowed to fester. If you’re interested in second-best resistance, there’s not much to choose from. Most of it was designed to be worse than that. The Republican Party is a case in point.
But what would I know? I’ve only been acutely aware of this control since the days of Reagan and Bush, who were part of it, as was Thatcher and a host of other national conservative leaders. Many made the right noises in public, but were different creatures in the shadows. There were plenty of shadows, though few noticed. Australia’s Fabian PM, Hawke, was another shadow-dweller, but then the more ‘conservative’ Fraser was no better.
We’ve just had duck hunting banned here. After three wet years, duck numbers are not low. But that’s not the point. The point is food supply is to be tightly squeezed. That means fishing, hunting, backyard egg production and even vegetable gardens are to soon disappear, as will livestock agriculture. Planned energy poverty is just part of the same strategy. This will happen because the resistance is pathetic.
Virtually no one seems to truly understand what we’re up against, other than the fake heroes biding their time to lead people astray yet again. They know, because they’re part of it.
I know because I got to pretend to be part of it and live to tell the tale to people who won’t believe it. I can easily tell those who never got close enough to learn anything much. Learning includes understanding just who owns your favourite power equipment brands, by the way.
All of the understandable defence of the petroleum industry ignores the fact that these industries are ultimately run by the very same people and they can pull the plug whenever they’re ready.
I left these pages for a fair while because I got tired of the same old debate. It is correct, but is not really achieving anything. I came back to see if it had moved on to the bigger picture which is far more disturbing.
It hasn’t. It’s like playing sandcastles in the middle of a quarry.
Rather than trying to get a law through the legislator, this should be a ballot measure to be voted on directly by the people. Of course the sponsors of this legislation know it wouldn’t pass, so like action on climate change in most locations, it is implemented from the top down.
All this over a totally fake crisis and Minnesota has its own versions of Dumb and Dumber and their both Democrats its always the Democrats who want to ban things we need