Two members of Quiet Clean NOVA met with Senator Jennifer Boysko August 19th, 2025
to ask her to support our billl when it comes before the Senate Committee of Local Government in the next GA session.
Senator Boysko represents McLean, Great Falls, and Herndon. She’s taken the place of Sen. Bagby on the Senate Local Government committee, the result of a contretemps in the last session related to the casino bill.
The senator was sympathetic to our bill and supportive of our effort. She told us that were the bill to come before her, she’d be inclined to vote with the patron.
Sizing up last year’s committee vote, she didn’t give us reason to be optimistic about getting it passed this year. The big story in the upcoming session will be the turmoil in the state’s finances caused by the White House, and our issue may have more trouble getting traction. We also have the structural problem of coming before the same committee we had last year (Boysko is in effect a one-for-one exchange with Bagby, who was one of the three yes votes). Lastly, she thought that a lot of senators would find it appealing to simply wait and see how the ban coming into effect in Alexandria next year fares in practice.
We talked about whether it’s better to have bills in both chambers or just one. While the senator sees the merit in the argument that more bills means more chances to kill something, she’d rather have bills going on both sides so legislators will be more likely to pay attention. After crossover, things are too fast and furious to expect them to focus on something they haven’t had to vote on before. We also touched on the possibility of having slightly different bills in the House and Senate, and she didn’t think that would be odd.
We talked at length about the effect of Attorney General Jason Miyares opinion regarding Alexandria City. The senator said she doesn’t see why that should foreclose our proposed legislation.
The senator gave us some good advice about amplifying support for the bill. We should continue to bring the issue to as many environmental groups with strong lobbying operations as we can.
One idea is to reach out to organizations that advance social justice agendas. While they don’t bill themselves as environmentally focused, such groups are known voices in Richmond, and they could speak effectively to the experiences of the landscape workers who are most directly burdened by the use of gas leaf blowers. In particular, she suggested we get in touch with CASA in Action and New Virginia Majority.
She encouraged us to continue cultivating support from local governments. Getting them to take the issue to Virginia Association of Counties (VACo) would be helpful.
We met with other members of the Senate Local Gov Committee
Meeting with Senator Roem July 2025 – 5 members of Quiet Clean NOVA
Meeting with Delegate Bulova July 2025. He said he is likely to co-sponsor our bill.
Meeting with Delegate Holly Seibold July 2025. Delegate Seibold agreed to co-sponsor our bill.
Meeting with Sen. Stella Pekarsky, August 2025
Meeting with LA of Sen. McPike, August 2025
Meeting with LA of Sen. Aird, August 2025
On Nov 27, 2023, 3 Quiet Clean NOVA members met the newly elected Senator Saddam Salim at Simply Social Coffee, Vienna, to ask him to introduce a Senate version of the bill Delegates Hope and Sullivan were to introduce in the House. Senator Salim agreed and filed the bill with the Division of Legislative Services by Nov 31st. Wonderful news! The senator was well aware of the harms of gas leaf blowers, and on his property uses an electric lawn mower and electric leaf blower.
Meeting with Delegate Dave Bulova
On Oct. 31, 2023, two Quiet Clean NOVA members from Fairfax City met with Delegate Bulova at DeClieu coffee shop. The delegate didn’t yet commit to co-sponsoring our bill, but he did offer advice:
– Approach at least one county or city to find out how they would “regulate” leaf blowers if the bill were passed, and incorporate that into the bill. Also, try to get support for the bill in county/city legislative packages.
– The 2022 bill is too broad. It needs some “guardrails” to reassure legislators about what localities would likely do. For example, it would be good to include some kind of phase in periods. For example there might be a longer phase in period for businesses that recently acquired gas powered blowers. Those guardrails should link to what a particular county/city would do if the bill passes.
– Approach VACo (Virginia Association of Counties) and/or VML (Virginia Municipal League) for potential support.
– Approach the Chair of the House of Delegates Cities and Towns Committee Keith Hodges (R) about his view of the bill. If the HOD changes hands there would be a new chair to approach.
– Approach the Governor’s legislative office about their view of the bill.
– Research whether banning/restricting gas powered leaf blowers helps meet federal clean air requirements. For example the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments (COG) has a clean air plan that this could perhaps support.
– Delegate Bulova will reach out to Delegates Hope and Sullivan about the bill.
- He asked the QC NOVA members to send him info on the noise level differences between electric vs gas leaf blowers.
Zoom with Delegate Bennett-Parker
On Sept. 26, 2023, two Quiet Clean NOVA members from Alexandria City talked with Delegate Bennett-Parker. The delegate, who had co-sponsored Kaye Kory’s bill in 2021, advised we get more members outside of NOVA, such as Hampton Roads, to write to their delegates to ask them to support legislation permitting bans.
Zoom with Delegate Holly Seibold
On August 23, 2023, ten Quiet Clean NOVA members from Vienna had a lively discussion with Delegate Holly Seibold and her legislative aide Dante Aralihalli. We started by introducing ourselves and saying why we oppose the use of gas leaf blowers. We covered all the negatives – harm to people, harm to the planet, and harm to wildlife.
Seibold was particularly interested in the alternatives. She asked about leaving the leaves, wouldn’t that kill the lawn? One response was that lawns are biological dead zones and killing them wouldn’t be a bad idea, that we need to get away from the lawn-centered view. The option was raised of mulching the leaves with the lawn mower (which has the added benefits of suppressing weeds and nourishing the soil, though it may also chop up insect larva.) Raking was also recommended. One member lamented the current fad for neatness at all cost. “What a waste all that noise and pollution when the only value is a bit of neatness.” We talked about planting natives and having meadows instead of lawns, and also the difficulties people had with their town’s or their HOA’s grass/weed ordinances. (One person’s front yard with all her native plants got mowed down by her HOA.) Seibold agreed that changes must be made together with an education outreach initiative about less nefarious yard practices.
We discussed the technology and cost of electric blowers. A participant showed us his Cobalt electric blower saying how easy and convenient it is to use and how the noise doesn’t disturb the neighbors. Most home owners now use electric blowers. The problem is landscape companies are reluctant to invest in this new equipment without subsidies or tax rebates. It was observed that they have little concern for the unhealthy working conditions of their crews. Seibold said she’d reach out to Michaels, a landscape company in Vienna.
Seibold asked about the bill Delegates Sullivan and Hope are working on to permit localities to ban or restrict gas blowers and/or to provide subsidies to landscapers to switch to electric. A member said she’d send on a draft as soon as one is ready.
In all, Seibold was enthusiastic and eager to learn as much as she could about the leaf blower issue. We covered a lot of ground during the generous 50 minutes she gave us.
In the summer of 2021, Quiet Clean NOVA met with Delegate Kaye Kory (D) and Senator Barabara Favola (D). Both agreed to introduce bills authorizing any localities in Virginia to ban or restrict gas leaf blowers.
- Unfortunately, in December we had a setback. Senator Favola , with regret, withdraw her sponsorship. Delegate Kory, however, continued to work on wording the bill. This effort was also ill-fated. At the last minute, Senator Saslaw(D) insisted on a highly watered down version of Kory’s bill – we could “regulate” but not ban or meaningfully restrict gas blowers. QC NOVA members hotly debated whether to accept or reject this lesser bill, but finally opted to support it. Debating the bill in the chambers would help raise awareness of the negatives of gas leaf blowers, and all other 2-stroke engines. And we could work to amend the bill the following year. However, the bill died in committee.
- Because of the present political climate, we didn’t try for a bill in 2022. The Democrats were more interested in preserving hard-won gains than on introducing new legislation. They are deep in defense mode. According to the Virginia Conservation Network (VCN), it’s keep REGGI, keep the Clean Economy Act, and keep the Clean Car Standards.