By Debbie Schlussel
In the land of Hollywood and liberals, hybrid cars and being “green” is hip and possible (all while these same hypocrites live in giant energy-sucking mansions and fly energy-sucking private jets).
But in the real world, it’s the death knell for businesses already struggling to survive in a downward-spiraling economy.

A group of taxi drivers and medallion owners is suing the City of Boston to block the requirement that all 1,825 cabs in the city be hybrids by 2015, saying the measure could put many of them out of business.
The plaintiffs say they do not oppose hybrid cars and generally favor the greening of the fleet. But they bristle at a regulation that they must buy new hybrids instead of less expensive used ones, and want the city to delay the changeover.

“I support the used hybrids,” said a plaintiff, Raphael Ophir of Jamaica Plain, who owns three hackney medallions and leases them to several cabdrivers. “But with this economy, with big companies going into Chapter 11, and with no credit available . . . delay it for two or three years.”
Andrew Hebert, a manager at USA Taxi Garage in Dorchester and the publisher of a magazine for the taxi industry in Boston called Rearview Mirror, said: “The owners are essentially saying, ‘Look, we’re not against going green, we’re against going broke.’ ”
Officials from the Police Department’s Hackney Carriage Unit, which regulates the taxi industry, would not comment on the federal lawsuit, according to Elaine Driscoll, a police spokeswoman.

Of course not. What’s to comment? There’s simply no excuse for this enviro-zealotry on steroids that will increase economic strife for everyone and cripple services, like cab transportation.
When will the absurdity end? Maybe when one of the greeniacs can’t finds he’s unable to get a cab at Boston Logan Airport.
Big government at work.
And by the way, this is just a small preview of Obama environmental policy’s future effects on all aspects of the auto industry. It puts people out of business.
Aren’t you glad the government took over General Motors?