Mowing Down Regulations

Mowing season is in full swing -- that time of year when suburban neighborhoods across America are alive with the guttural roar of small-horsepower engines. Those gas-powered grass cutters not only create noise pollution, they're also big-time smog producers. With the simple, low-cost addition of a catalytic converter, they'd burn a lot cleaner -- something clean air regulators have been pushing for. So what's the hold up? This New York Times article from April tells how the Briggs and Stratton company and Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) have singlehandedly kept clean air regulations at bay and dirty mowers at full throttle.