LAWNMOWER ATTACK JUST ONE MORE EPA EXCESS

The Environmental Protection Agency, never alien to the outrageous, may have really stepped in it this time. Adept in the art of regulation -- though ham-handed when it comes to making decisions palatable to the public -- the EPA believes lawn mowers and other small gas-powered lawn equipment are fouling the atmosphere. The belief in this is one thing, but the federal agency owns the authority to make it cost you. We believe this most recent pronouncement, however, will get Americans where they live and alert them to the unchecked power -- and lack of restraint -- found at the EPA.

According to the EPA, which announced its proposed rule last week, about 5 percent of air pollution is generated from the nation's 89 million mowers, lawn tractors, and chain saws. The agency says these gas-powered implements discharge more than 6 million tons of pollutants into the atmosphere annually.

Scientifically, we are not equipped to dispute these claims. However, in considering some other EPA statements, we are left to scratch our heads. Last week, as evidence the new regulations are needed, the agency explained that operating a lawn mower for one hour generates the same amount of pollution as 12 hours of operating a new automobile. A leaf blower operated for an hour is the equivalent of 34 hours of car-borne pollution. A chain saw equals 63 hours of driving, in terms of contaminants. It is necessary to concede that new cars have catalytic converters and other devices to control emissions, but a typical lawn mower has 4.5 horsepower while a typical car has more than 200 horsepower. It stands to reason too that more cars are in use at any one time than lawn mowers, which in most parts of the nation are used for only portions of the year.

Where the EPA tries to score points with the public is in its insistence that the lawn mowers and gas-powered weed whackers now in use won't be subject to the regulations. Instead, they will weigh in only on manufacturers, who would have to turn out products that satisfy the new standards. This is a well-worn Washington gambit, spinning an announcement by saying that businesses will bear the burden. However, businesses won't absorb the cost of new mandates, and they never have. They get passed along to consumers. The EPA estimates the cost increase for each new implement will be $5. In California, where emission standards for power lawn equipment were adopted in 1990, the price of a typical lawn mower was said to have risen about $30.

In effect, the EPA has passed along a cost (not dissimilar to a tax) without a vote of the people, without an act of Congress and using a premise that is scientifically suspect.

While EPA officials took pains last week to deny that the next target of their emissions crusade will be backyard barbecues, they did hint that marine engines might be the next items due for regulation. That should send a shudder through the river industry, which spent much of last year fighting for its life with Congress and the president over a proposed and oppressive marine fuel tax increase.

The list of environmental mandates seems never ending. The federal government threatens to withhold highway funds from states that don't meet air quality standards, even though the states faithfully collect the fuels taxes at issue. The EPA hits businesses and property owners with outrageously expensive Superfund demands. Consumers must bear the brunt of environmental regulations that command the high-priced capture of refrigerant gasses. In another recent proposal, the EPA announced a pesticide plan that restricts the most responsible, efficient and productive farmers on the planet from using certain agricultural chemicals, all the while offering no direction for suitable alternatives.

In its lawn mower edict, however, the EPA might find an aggressive bit of opposition. In claiming the pollution risk of outdoors maintenance equipment, the EPA might have inadvertently invited the public to recognize the Chicken-Little folly of their frequent pronouncements -- not to mention the extent to which they will ask the public to subsidize them.

Officials of the EPA are paid by U.S. taxpayers so they undeniably comprise an American agency. But in considering their record, a question goes begging: Whose side are they on?