This is a good thing. It might inconvenience some old suburban men that have no hobbies other than making their lawn look like astroturf, but those of us that breathe air regularly should be asking for this in their own jurisdiction.
Unlike your car, a four-stroke engine with a catalytic converter, a leaf blower is a two-stroke that burns oil by design. The amount of particulate emissions is hard to understate, and the amount of NOx these belch out is staggering. Asthma, cancer, heart disease, COPD, all are on the table with this type of system.
Suburban homeowners can use electric blowers. They're good enough now and not silent but way quieter and non-emitting. If you get the mower and trimmer and chainsaw, etc in the same system, they all share batteries. It's SO NICE not having to repair, refuel, tune, and tolerate small engines.
These tools probably aren't ready for professional landscapers yet but they're almost there.
A lot of 4-stroke don't have much emissions controls either although it does burn cleaner than a two stroke. If you buy heavy equipment like excavator or tractor under 25hp you can get it with no emissions controls which is highly sought after because they don't break down as often.
I'm not sure where you are located, but that is not the case in the majority of the US. In most of the US they are overwhelmingly 2-stroke.
Just checked a couple local hardware store websites too to make sure I wasn't crazy... there aren't any 4-strokes leaf blowers available in-store, they're all 2-stroke.
Unlike your car, a four-stroke engine with a catalytic converter, a leaf blower is a two-stroke that burns oil by design. The amount of particulate emissions is hard to understate, and the amount of NOx these belch out is staggering. Asthma, cancer, heart disease, COPD, all are on the table with this type of system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-stroke_engine#Emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx#Health_and_environment_eff...