The end of gasoline usage in California is upon us. Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order back in 2020 that will ban the sale of all internal combustion engines by 2035 in California.
This new regulation is an offshoot of that executive order, which is looking to ban the use of “small off-road engines,” or SORE, by 2024.
These engines power anything from emergency response equipment and generators, to commercial lawn equipment.
The bill aims at banning all these and more, as CARB, the California Air Resources Board, defines the SORE category as “spark-ignition engines that produce up to 25hp or less.”
What this all means is that golf carts, logging and industrial equipment, and more will be banned from the state if the bill passes.
CARB says that there are currently 16.7 million engines that fall under the SORE category, which compared to the 13.7 million passenger vehicles in the state, means that the CO2 emissions could drastically decrease if a ban goes into effect.
However, this bill might be nice to the environment, but it is anything but nice to businesses, small and large- and not for the reasons you might think.
There is the obvious: all of these machines will instantly become unusable, meaning that the owners will have one of two choices- throw away the machines where they will pile up in landfills, or, in my opinion what will be the more popular choice, sell it to someone who doesn’t live in California.
This will make the bill’s intended purpose- reducing emissions- nonexistent because all the emitters (the gas-powered engines) would just have been moved from one place to another, where they will surely be used just as much as they were in the Golden State.
However, we haven’t even gotten into the financial repercussions of the bill. All businesses centered around these engines, like lawn-mowing and logging companies, will immediately have to either get electric replacements for their gas-powered counterparts, which can cost up to twice as much in most cases and sometimes even more, or go out of business because they can no longer work.
Then, if the business choses to stay open, they now need to hire more staff to transport extra batteries to and from worksites, which will require larger trucks to haul the new equipment around.
They also will likely need an upgraded electric system in their place of operations to support the charging and recharging of all the batteries in their machinery.
All these costs cut into the business’ profit margin and some may not be able to afford the transition, making the owners take a huge hit and many may lose their jobs.
I’m sure the lawmakers had everyone’s best interests in mind when they created this bill, but surely there has to be a way to stop climate change without stopping people from running their businesses.
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