Hummer Bummers

Chrysler "is recalling more than 326,000 pickup trucks and Durango sport utility vehicles because of two potential safety problems," reports Reuters. Meanwhile, Hummer sales were down 21 percent in April, possibly due in part to "rising gasoline prices." General Motors is responding by "offering discounted financing on its Hummer H2, the icon of the market for supersize sport-utility vehicles," according to the Wall Street Journal. GM is also offering dealer incentives "to move out bloated inventories of its Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade big SUVs." Declaring, "It's time we started taxing the sins of the 21st century," one Texas lawmaker proposed taxing major air polluters, including "power plants, SUV owners and coal-burning industries." The proposal was made during an emergency legislative session on school funding.