by Kerry Dougherty
Does anyone really think fewer gas mowers will make a difference?
More importantly, is it the role of government to tell citizens what they must use to trim their fescue?
Of course it isn’t.
Why should we in Virginia care? Because we’re just one car back on California’s crazy train.
During the disastrous Ralph Northam era, when both chambers of the General Assembly were controlled by Virginia’s far-left Democrats, the Old Dominion linked its automotive climate policies to California’s.
Unless sanity is restored in the November elections and the Senate flips to the GOP, gas-powered cars will no longer be sold in Virginia after 2035.
Here’s an explanation from the Virginia Mercury:
In 2021, Virginia Democrats pushed through legislation to adopt vehicle emissions standards and electric car sales targets set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as part of the party’s broad climate change agenda. The law, which has been hotly opposed by state Republicans who tried but failed to repeal it in 2022, was supported by the influential Virginia Automobile Dealers Association.
Because of federal law establishing a two-year transition period, the California standards won’t be effective in Virginia until early 2024, but once in force will bring Virginia in line with 14 other states and Washington, D.C. that have decided to follow the Golden State’s path.
“The General Assembly did decide for Virginia to become a clean cars state and take advantage of the authority under the Clean Air Act to adopt more stringent tailpipe pollution regulations. And those measures do change over time,” said Trip Pollard, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who lobbied for Virginia to join with California.
Lucky us.
It’s unlikely the Old Dominion will also ban gas-powered lawn tools next year. But it’s coming. Eventually.
Unless we decouple from the crazy train, that is. There’s only one way to do that: vote against the Dems in November and repeal the Northam-era insanity.
Keep the government off our grass.
