The war on common sense isn’t limited to gender conflict. The same people taking things away from women are keen on robbing everyone else of something. Washington State Rep. Amy Walen has proposed a bill banning gas-powered landscaping equipment. My first thought?
As a card-carrying member of the “just leave me the hell alone foundation,” I find these incessant incursions into every facet of life offensive. Who “the you know what” thinks they can effectively micro-manage everything? Democrats, that’s who. And always, in the void that passes for the head-space between their ears.
State Representative Amy Walen (D-Kirkland) pre-filed legislation that makes sweeping additions to the Washington State Clean Air Act. HB 1868 bans “gasoline-powered and diesel-powered landscaping and other outdoor power equipment” for “contributing to climate change.” The bill lists a number of unintended health consequences tied to the tools, as well, including the claim that they cause asthma.
The bill gets to the ban by empowering the Department of Ecology to “adopt rules to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new outdoor power equipment” by either January 1, 2026 or sooner, if the state determines it’s feasible to do so earlier. Washingtonians are expected to upgrade their equipment to zero-emission alternatives. Government work, however, is partly exempt.
Infowars frames this correctly as both a war on small businesses (who can’t absorb the regulatory and equipment costs) and a war on minority businesses. Yes, Amy, it’s racist!
Though Democrats argue their legislation should be viewed through an equity lens, this ban has a disproportionate impact on Latino and black business owners. Nationwide data stated 22.8% of landscaping companies are owned by Hispanics and 14.7% are owned by blacks.
The cost to transition to zero-emission alternatives is burdensome, too, even with financial assistance provided in the bill. For some businesses, it could still be prohibitively expensive. This financial burden could disproportionately affect minority-owned businesses, potentially leading to a reduction in diversity within the industry, if Democrat talking points are to be believed.
I’ve seen more than my fair share of evidence on these pages about how the Left’s priorities hurt the people whom they claim to help. This is not much different. Whaling Amy Walen is an environmentally #woke legislator in a Democrat-majority state. She has submitted a resume-plumping bill that will harm the locals, including minorities, for net-zero environmental gain. This is about her, not the environment, and that’s easier to figure out than what a Dem poll worker is doing with a suitcase full of mail-in ballots.
Aside from the cities where there isn’t too much leaf-blowing (for example), Washington state is a big lot of empty. The sum of its “landscaper” emissions is puny. China will have erased all assumed gains in total before I finish writing this post. Great harm for no benefit. Inane and grevious.
Replacements for gas-powered rigs will have higher manufacturing and decommission footprints, with much of those emissions offshored to foreign lands where Washington State Elites burnishing their climate bona fides will never see them. Lands and waters have been ruined for generations by Chinese Communist-owned rare-earth metals mines with no safety controls for workers or protections for the indigenous populations and resources around them. You’d think a bunch of globalists would have the sense to know how bad this is, you know, globally, yet they remain silent or ignorant.
If you want to make a real difference, ban imports from China, including silicon for solar panels, assembled panels or components, wind turbine bits, lithium batteries or their parts, and a million other shocks the climate is heir to from Chinese manufacturing. And don’t forget their slave labor.
Amy should propose regulations to limit the influx and influence of all Chinese products and interests. Kick them out of your universities. Stop taking funding or grants from Chinese investors. Stop giving grants to Chinese researchers. Take back any land they bought or, and here’s an idea, go to China and protest their record-setting, planet-choking emissions at the source.
I’m sure your organs will go to someone who needs them.
