WASHINGTON — A Senate panel approved legislation Thursday that would block California from setting new air pollution standards for the engines which power lawn mowers, generators, pumps, and many other small machines.

The Senate Appropriations Committee included the provision in a must-pass $90 billion annual spending bill funding U.S. housing and veterans' programs as well as federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.

It voted 16-12 to reject an effort by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein to strip the restriction from the bill.

California has proposed new emissions standards for small lawn and garden engines that would likely require the use of catalytic converters like those required for most vehicles.

Feinstein said blocking those standards would be a "mortal blow" to the state's efforts to comply with federal clean air requirements, possibly jeopardizing government grants worth $2.4 billion a year.

"This language strips away the state's right to regulate these engines," she said.

But opponents of the new emissions standards said the cost of making the design changes they would require would be too much for the few remaining American makers of the engines.

"This venture by California will end the manufacture of these small engines in the United States," said Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, the chairman of the subcommittee that drafted the spending bill.

One of the largest U.S. manufacturers of engines for lawn and garden equipment, Briggs & Stratton Corp., has two factories in Missouri. Bond said some 2,000 jobs in his state would be lost if it moved production overseas.

The spending bill now goes to the full Senate, where more debate on the issue is likely. The House version of the bill does not contain a similar provision.