For those of you who are thinking about getting a scooter or who found your way here through a certain search engine because you have the same problem I do, the link should help.

Basically, some of the Taiwanese manufacturers have gotten on board with EPA regulations, but not quite caught onto the fact that motorcycle licence plates are horizontally mounted in some states of the US, Tennessee being one of those. This means that the holes on the rear fender where you'd normally mount your licence plate simply don't work, and you can't drill holes in the plate (apparently it's some sort of crime).

The item linked to by this post gets you a bracket which attaches to those holes, and lets you mount the licence plate more or less normally on the rear of the bike. Yay!