Hatch: Save the Hummer ... for the Environment

Many Republicans won’t touch fuel economy issues, but not Sen. Orrin Hatch. He’s been an advocate for alternative-fuel vehicles for a decade, and yesterday got behind the wheel of the most muscular hybrid ever, reports Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. A company from Hatch’s native Utah has created a plug-in Hummer that gets 100 mpg. Just two problems: General Motors is jettisoning the Hummer brand, and Hatch apparently can’t drive.

The Republican bumbled around a parking lot with the million-dollar prototype, asking questions like, “It’s already on? Squeeze that button? I’m going to miss the curb? Is there a reverse?” He called the gas-sipping monstrosity a “major national victory,” and said he was fighting to keep GM from selling the brand to China. “If this goes to China, so does the technology,” he lamented, “and China is a very aggressive country.” (More Orrin Hatch stories.)