Administrative Rules Adopted for Gas Leaf Blower Policy

The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) opened a public comment period on proposed administrative rules from November 1 through December 14, 2025. Staff received 246 comments from 233 individuals, including 166 that pertained to the proposed rules.

After reviewing and analyzing all comments received during the public comment period, three common themes were identified:

• Start penalties on January 1, 2026
• Simplify the process for issuing penalties
• Separate gas and noise compliant forms

Staff explored options for each of these and the BPS director made the following recommendations:

• Keep existing timeline; begin imposing civil penalties on January 1, 2028
• Maintain proposed process for issuing penalties, but shorten 90-day period to 45 days
• Maintain use of existing code enforcement system to collect GLB complaints

More details on the analysis as well as reasons for these decisions were included in a memo from BPS Director Eric Engstrom to DCA Donnie Oliveira on (TK-DATE):

Gas Leaf Blower Phase-out - Final Administrative Rules memo

The final administrative rules are available for review on Portland Policy Documents:

ENN 3.05 Gas Leaf Blowers

Policy background

Portland City Council unanimously passed an ordinance to phase out the use of gas leaf blowers (GLBs) in the city of Portland on March 6, 2024, and the phased implementation of this ordinance went into effect January 1, 2026.

This policy focused on the public health impacts of GLBs, namely air pollution and noise, as well as the disproportionate impact on GLB operators. The ordinance as well as the draft administrative rules sought to balance many considerations in the transition from gas to electric leaf blowers, such as the cost of replacement equipment, expected timeline for electric leaf blower performance to improve, and differing needs among commercial and residential users.