Turning to greener wheels With Nuñez at the forefront, more state legislators choose hybrids as official vehicles. They're statement cars now, an image consultant says. SACRAMENTO — If you are what you drive, California lawmakers are a newly green bunch. They're swapping gas-sucking sport utility vehicles for gas-sipping hybrids as their official state cars. Now that the lease on his Ford Explorer has expired, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) is driving a Toyota Prius. At least 38 of his fellow members also have chosen hybrids; only 10 have requested nonhybrid SUVs as their taxpayer-subsidized wheels. That's a transformation since 2002, when a single member drove a hybrid and 33 had SUVs. Read more.
The mayor of Houston drives a black 2004 Prius, and he has ordered the city to start buying Prii for their use. I see a lot of city inspectors driving white Prii nowadays here in Houston.
As I tax payer I applaud this effort. The money saved in gas can be used to help cities. For most official city work a Prius should be fine, for the others I would recommend a Escape Hybrid and if not it "should" be a truck or van.
When I drive a company car, most of the time I use no gasoline at all. That's because the organization I work for has a large fleet of Honda Civic GX's, which are powered by natural gas, and are rated the cleanest of all cars. There are also some natural gas-powered pickup trucks in the fleet. Harry
Correa admits he's so cheap that as an Orange County supervisor he used Wite-Out over his predecessor's name on envelopes to avoid having to buy new ones. His hand-me-down Prius, he said, "has a couple of dings. But you can't really tell unless you look for them. I do this too!
