No industry attracts the scorn of Greens like autos. And in 2009, government barbarians successfully crashed the gates of two auto giants (actually, the companies let them in!), gaining unprecedented authority over the industry’s products. Herewith the worst green moments from the year past:

1. Beast One. On inauguration day, Barack Obama launched his War on Global Warming. In 30-degree Washington weather — twelve degrees below normal — he scolded the assembled shivering hordes that “we will work tirelessly to . . . roll back the specter of a warming planet.” Then he climbed into his brand new, gas-guzzling, GMC-Topkick-truck-platform-based Caddy limo (dubbed “The Beast” by the Secret Service) and led the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue flanked by an armada of giant GM SUVs.

2. Bail out Detroit or else! In February, GM CEO Rick Wagoner warned that, unless the feds threw sinking Detroit automakers a $30 billion lifeline (a bargain!), the companies would descend into Chapter 11 chaos that could cost taxpayers up to $100 billion in lost tax revenue and unemployment checks. By year’s end, the taxpayer bill for rescuing GM, Chrysler, and their Delphi and GMAC subsidiaries had climbed to nearly $100 billion.

3. Washington knows cars. In late February, a White House auto task force took over GM and Chrysler to chart a new course by developing more fuel-efficient products like the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid. The companies’ error, explained White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, was never investing “in alternative energy cars. They got dependent on big gas guzzlers.” One month later, in its report on GM’s viability, the task force declared the Volt a money-loser that “will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable.”

4. You can have any car color as long as it’s white. California proposed a “Cool Cars Standard” that effectively banned black cars so that they would reflect 20 percent of “impinging solar energy” and reduce emissions via less AC use. Public outrage led to the rule’s withdrawal.

5. Stone the heretics! Congressional greens deemed gas guzzlers traded in under the Cash for Clunkers program to be immoral. They had to be destroyed — including disabling their internal combustion engines with a sodium silicate solution so that they would never sin against the planet again. The real victims? Lower-income Americans who typically buy used vehicles and parts.

6. We had to destroy Detroit in order to save it. Having rescued the Detroit Two with billions in taxpayer dollars, Washington designed its Cash for Clunkers program to discriminate against Detroit-built cars. Asian manufacturers benefited from a program skewed towards their small-car product lines, robbing GM and Chrysler of market share and giving a huge boost to Korea’s Hyundai — which doubled its U.S. sales.

7. Welfare for the rich. Under the Energy Department’s green-vehicle program, ex–Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker received $529 million to help Fisker Automotive (owned in part by Al Gore’s company, Kleiner Perkins) develop a $50,000 electric-powered sedan. Another $465 million went to Tesla (Mercedes is a part owner) to build its $60,000 Model S sedan.

8. No to green jobs! Higher fuel-economy standards forced increased production of nickel-hydride batteries for hybrids, which in turn jump-started the nickel-mining industry. Green jobs? Nope. “Environmental groups find the rush to bring in mining projects alarming,” reported the Detroit News as the National Wildlife Federation filed suit against mining permits in job-starved Michigan.

9. Green Governator? At the Los Angeles Auto Show, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed hybrid-electric technologies “that will save us all and help fight global warming.” Then he drove off in his gas-powered, 16-mpg, V-8 GMC Yukon XL. This just a week after he was caught illegally parking his 500-HP, 19-mpg Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet.

10. And last but not least . . . Dumb Quote of the Year. The world’s premier racing series, Formula One, has come under withering attack from greens, even as its popularity makes it irresistible to automaker marketing. When Mercedes announced it was entering the sport in 2010, reporters demanded to know how it would balance grand-prix racing with cultivating a greener corporate image. Norbert Haug, vice president of Mercedes Motorsport, pathetically replied: “As long as millions and millions of people world-wide watch Formula One races during two hours on Sunday afternoon only a few of them are driving in a car.”