Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells (D) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would give a tax credit to Washington, D.C., businesses that buy hybrid cars to be used as taxicabs. The Taxicab Hybrid Technology Expansion Act will create a one-time $2,000 business income tax credit for businesses that purchase alternative fuel vehicles.

“A robust taxicab fleet is integral to providing residents, workers, commuters and visitors viable options to move around the city, but with our taxicab fleet comes a lot of pollution,” Wells said in a release. “It is incumbent upon us to do everything we can to demand more fuel-efficiency from those vehicles and create the incentives that help get us to our goals.”

The bill also requires Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) to create a strategy to turn half of the District’s taxis into alternative fuel vehicles in the next 10 years. It also asks that he conduct a study of hybrid taxis in the District. The bill aims to have 5 percent of all taxis be hybrids by 2009 and 50 percent by 2017.

— Alison McSherry