You are on a roll - another great idea for improving things. Write your congress person?

It would also encourage the use of plants native to a region in landscaping.

Austin should start--it's already relatively progressive on green things (not progressive enough or it would've managed to get a better public transportation system in place thirty years ago when a lot of us were proposing a commuter rail down the middle of I-35 before it got those extra lanes...) I think it would have to start with cities, then counties, then work its way up--there's not nearly enough support and there will be a heckuva lot of resistance from people who just don't believe they can live without a big green lawn.

And start with businesses. There is NO reason why businesses should be watering the pavement to try to keep green non-native grasses in a strip between the parking lot and the street...but I see water running away into the gutters a lot of nights in Austin. Just tell commercial people: you can't water your landscapes. You can save roof-water to water with, or you can xeriscape, but no more city water.

I ran into a guy in our church's environmental group (they were selling cloth shopping bags) who used to have rain barrels but decided they were too ugly (or did his neighbors?) and he can't afford to put in an underground tank. We need to change the aesthetics as related to above-ground tanks (which, after all, are gravity feed and require no pumps to move the water to ground level.) Find a way to make "ugly" into "beautiful" in the eye of the beholder....