Polis goes electric in lawn and garden at a Home Depot

Colorado’s Front Range has a dangerous problem of ozone. New tax incentives for electric lawnmowers and other equipment seeks to shrink the problem.

by Allen Best

In Colorado, electric cars are nearing 20% of total sales. But in sales of lawn mowers, I am guessing the story is all but over.

I say that based on a recent visit to the Home Depot located down the street from me in suburban Denver. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was visiting the store, just six blocks from my house in Olde Town Arvada. As a business card-carrying member of the independent press, I felt compelled to follow him through the aisles.

I have followed Polis from time to time since I began doing Big Pivots in January 2020. My first time was in Craig, where I had gone to cover early discussions about what just transition would mean in the context of Craig and Hayden. The closure of the Craig coal-burning plants by 2030 had been announced a few weeks before. Polis was there for a community meeting in Hayden. On his way there, he was to stop at a small boating shop in Craig.

I got there early and was surprised that Polis arrived alone. Just him, the two proprietors — and me. A couple of hours later, as I sat in the Hayden Town Hall, I saw that Colorado had its first covid case.

This visit to the Home Depot in Arvada near Wadsworth Boulevard and Interstate 70 was different, and not just because we’re on the other side of covid. When I arrived 10 minutes early, I saw a sea of orange aprons assembled near the lawnmower aisle.

I counted 19 models of electric lawnmower and three gasoline-burning models. In leaf blowers, the same thing: electric models dominated.

It’s not just Home Depot. On summer solstice 2023, I had a conversation with Rep. Karen McCormick at a coffee shop in her hometown of Longmont. She had co-sponsored a big suitcase of a bill in 2023 (along with Sen. Chris Hansen and Rep. Emily Sirota) that had 13provisions intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado.

The penultimate provision of SB23-016 identified a state income tax credit of 33% of the purchase price for new, electric-powered lawn equipment during 2024-2026. Buyers were allowed a 30% credit.

I was astonished at what I saw when we ended our interview with a visit to Lowe’s. Perhaps she was, too. Most of the lawn mowers were already electric.

electric-powered lawnmowers at HOme Depot

Home Depot stores in Colorado carry 19 models of electric lawnmowers and just 3 gas-powered models.

At issue is the role of two-stroke gas-powered lawnmowers and other motorized yard equipment in creating ozone that harms our bodies. Colorado’s northern Front Range has a pernicious problem. On hot, baking days of summer, lingering into the evenings, my lungs testify to the problem.

Ozone is natural but not at these concentrations. It is created by two key ingredients, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.

As the scientific evidence emerged about how bad ground-level ozone can be for lungs, the EPA has lowered thresholds. The nine-county region of Denver and northern Colorado has been in substantial violation of the federal standards.

Two-stroke gas engines are not the only problem or even the greatest problem. Exhausts from our cars, pickups and trucks is a major problem. So are fumes from oil-and-gas drilling. It does add up, though.

One article I consulted had Mike Silverstein, of the Denver Regional Council of Governments, or DRCOG, attributing 2 to 3 parts per billion to lawn and garden equipment. That compares with 4 to 7 ppb from oil and gas. On-road vehicles account for 6.8 ppb.

A report by the CoPIRG Foundation in 2022 used different metrics. Operating a commercial gas-powered lawn mower for one-hour can result in as many ozone-forming emissions as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from Trinidad, near the New Mexico border, to Cheyenne, a few miles into Wyoming.

“Even worse, operating a commercial gas-powered leaf blower for just one hour can result in a staggering amount of ozone-forming emissions: about the same as driving from Denver to Calgary, 1,100 miles away.

Just one hour!

And here’s the bottom line from that report: shifting lawn equipment away from gas to electric could solve 20% of the ozone problem.

DRCOG – the nine-county council of governments – last summer recommended that the state ban sale of gasoline-powered yard equipment. The state’s Air Quality Control Commission in February finalized a decision made in December to take a lesser approach.

Rejecting the DRCOG recommendation, the commission ruled that governments at all levels cannot use gas-powered equipment on parks and in grassy areas in front of office buildings and so forth during the high-ozone months of summer and early fall. This policy goes into effect in 2025.

This is the first statewide policy of its kind in the nation, noted CoPIRG in a February posting.

Home Depot is not disclosing what proportion of its lawnmower sales are electric vs. those that are gas-powered, but there are few models of the latter available for purchase.

Back to the gubernatorial visit to my neighborhood Home Depot on March 5.

The governor got lots of explanations that I could not hear. He put on safety glasses and operated an electric leaf blower and watched as a couple of guys showed how electric chain could rip through a six-inch tree limb. Then he spun an electric cart around a shopping aisle. “Runs smoothly,” I heard him say.

All around were signs advertising 30% off of the full price of the electric-powered equipment – a reflection of the tax credits.

As in Craig, I may have been the only press guy there — although, of course, you are forgiven for not confusing me with the Denver Moon or other publications with bigger megaphones.

After the governor had purchased a couple of bags of organic fertilizer, I talked with the presenters to Polis.

Jillian Lazzarini had flown from Atlanta, the headquarters of Home Depot. She wears the title of “senior merchant.” Had all those signs advertising the 30% off price been placed specifically for the governor’s visit?

No, she said, Home Depot had begun gearing up in September for when the tax credits became effective on Jan. 1. She said she told the governor that Home Depot wanted to make the experience as seamless as possible for the consumer.

I wondered whether the product offering varied by store in Colorado. Did Grand Junction or Durango stores have as many electric mowers, since they are outside Colorado’s worst ozone problem area? No, she said, the inventory was the same at all 50-some Home Depots across Colorado.

As for what kind of sales the electric models had sustained vs. the gas-powered models, that was not something she was going to tell me – if she knew.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis takes a yard cart for a spin around Home Depot at the invitation of Steve Holland of Ryobi Tools.

I also talked with Steve Holland, a representative of Ryobi Tools, who had flown from South Carolina to talk about his company’s brand of electric goods at Home Depot. I wanted to know how Colorado was different from other states. There was the 2023 legislation plus the Polis executive order later the same year that state agencies must acquire electric lawn equipment instead of gas-powered when making purchases.

Or was this where the market was going anyway? Indirectly, I wondered whether the 30% tax credit had been necessary in the first place.

It was the direction of the market, Holland answered, but the policies in Colorado and California had accelerated sales beyond those in other states.

California recently mandated all-electric. Colorado had adopted some mandates in the energy transition, but more typically offers incentives. That seems to be the Polis preference, and my own take is that Colorado is affluent enough to have the money for incentives.

What most interests me is to what extent Colorado is providing a model for Kansas and Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland. I’d buy a beer and maybe slice of pizza for anybody who wants to go deep with me on that.

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