Screen shot of the beginning of the District’s newly enacted Leaf Blower Regulation Act, above.
On December 26, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed D.C. Act 22-538, which begins the District’s shift away from hyper-polluting, dangerously noisy, technologically obsolete gas-powered lawn equipment.
The process of community engagement and information-sharing that led to this decision began nearly three and a half years ago, in the fall of 2015. During this past year of 2018, the legislative record was:
Unanimous approval by the City Council’s “Committee of the Whole”
Unanimous approval by the entire Council on its “first reading,” or initial passage
Unanimous approval by the entire Council on its “second reading,” or final passage
Signature into law by the Mayor
Details will come in this site and elsewhere about sharing information on the hows and whys of speeding adoption of battery-powered equipment, and sharing the District’s experience elsewhere. For now, congratulations and thanks to all involved.
(Screen shot of the signature page, below.}
Signature page from the new Act.
Note for the record: under the “Taxation Without Representation” regime that governs activities in the District, in theory the U.S. Congress could, within the next 30 days, vote to overturn this Act, as it can with other decisions of the D.C. City Council.
But in practical terms that would require the new House of Representatives, under Democratic control, and the new Senate, still under Republican control, both to approve such an over-turn measure, and then for Donald Trump to sign it. Anything is possible, but the odds of the 116th Congress getting around to this in the next month, when it is still struggling with such basics as funding the federal government, seem vanishingly remote.