The grass must be greener

They never give up.

Once created, a government entity will attempt to endlessly expand its mandate until it controls literally everything it can get its hands on.

Remember, as a kid, driving or strolling by a neighborhood bakery -- the wonderful aroma of the fresh-baked bread wafting out across the street?

Wrong! Those weren't wonderful aromas, they were "volatile hydrocarbons," toxic gases -- at least according to today's state and federal "environmental protection" outfits.

Modern American bakers now have to spend millions of dollars installing hoods, gas traps, and "toxic waste treatment technology" to capture, sequester and break down the gases we used to enjoy emerging from their ovens (and from grandma's), adding to the consumer cost of every loaf of bread.

And watch out, Starbucks: The Environmental Protection Agency reportedly also has its eye on "coffee aroma," which reportedly contains "more than 300 compounds, some toxic."

Once the government got its hands on them, the tanks on our toilets began to shrink to "save water'" -- though if you have to flush multiple times, it may be the government math that goes down the drain. Soon the top-loading clothes washing machine will also be banned, driving up consumer costs and making spills more likely -- again in the name of saving water and electricity, as though these are commodities the federal government supplies ... which it does not.

What next? Lawnmowers.

"Gasoline-powered lawnmowers that are a big cause of summertime air pollution will have to be dramatically cleaner under rules issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency," The Associated Press reported this week, calling the regulations "long-awaited."

The new rules require a 35 percent reduction in emissions from new lawn and garden equipment beginning in 2011, which in most cases will mean the addition of catalytic converters. And then there's the 70 percent reduction in emissions from speedboats and other recreational watercraft, beginning in 2010.

Canoes not affected -- yet.

The reductions will be the equivalent of removing one out of every five cars and trucks from the road, brags Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. (Imagine that -- there are enough of them to have their own "association"!)

The EPA claims approximately 190 million gallons of gasoline will be saved each year when the rules take effect, and that more than 300 premature deaths will be prevented annually.

We renew our standard demand: Can the EPA send us a photocopy of a single death certificate, reporting a single American's cause of death as "pollution from a lawnmower" or "fumes wafting off the lake from a recreational watercraft"?

We didn't think so.

Meantime, as politicians talk about "fuel independence," catalytic converter technology depends on the use of either platinum or palladium -- strategic metals over which the kind and gentle Russians hold a virtual price-and-supply monopoly.

The EPA estimates the cost of implementing these latest regulations -- costs passed along to everyday Americans, mind you, not to them -- at $236 million per year.

Industry groups said exact figures were difficult to calculate, but the California Air Resources Board has estimated that walk-behind mowers would cost 18 percent more under the new regulation.

Which is not enough for the Californians, apparently. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein insisted the new federal rules allow states including hers to lard on their own, even more onerous and expensive, restrictions. Hallelujah!