The US Environmental Protection Agency yesterday released the first modern emissions standards for small engines, proving that even lawn-mower titans like Briggs & Stratton can only avoid regulation for so long (Boston Globe).

Small fry? Not at all. These engines are so filthy that the National Association of Clean Air Agencies estimates that this regulation alone is equivalent to removing one in five cars from US roads. The Environmental Defense Fund says one lawnmower typically pollutes as much as 34 vehicles. To be sure, both lungs and the climate stand to benefit when the regulations go into effect in 2010.

The Associated Press offered a brief history of how Republican Senator Kit Bond has delayed action for the past several years (for a more complete account, check this 2006 story in the New York Times). Bond maintained that putting catalytic converters on lawnmowers could cause wildfires, even though they have been standard equipment on vehicles for the past three decades or so.

Not surprisingly, Briggs and Stratton manufactures many of its engines in Bond’s home state of Missouri. And as it happens, the company has been pushing a more consumer-oriented approach to reducing emissions, which would include not filling up the fuel tank and keeping the machine out of the sun.