Maralyn Chase's Greatest Hits, Volume 2008

As Eric Earling noted the other day, Maralyn Chase (D-Econuts) has been busy. But her ban on plastic grocery bags is just the beginning.

You may have heard about her carbon tax, or her use of the carbon tax to subsidize other businesses. But that sort of socialist redistribution of wealth is old hat, right?

You may also have heard of her bill to ban plastic water bottles; why should grocery bags have all the fun? She also wants to ban non-recyclable fast food packaging.

But by far, my personal favorite is requiring retailers of small-scale gas-powered equipment to give equal or greater shelf space and signage to electrical or battery alternatives, plus requiring that all state government agencies purchase the non-gas alternatives, and pays local governments to follow suit. The department of general administration will cease use of all gas-powered lawnmowers, string trimmers, and weed blowers by October 1, 2008. Oh, and it levies an additional six percent tax on all such gas-powered equipment.

If you have enough land such that electric and battery equipment is impractical, well, you shouldn't have that much land, of course! And if you sell a lot more gas equipment than electrical or battery equipment because there's many more gas models and no one wants the others, well, don't worry: the six percent tax will make up for your wasted floor space. That's how it works ... right?

And if any of you are passing by a Home Depot or somesuch, please count the number of different types of lawnmowers available. I'm curious.