Obama campaign speech targets Romney’s energy policy
During a campaign stop in Colorado this week, President Obama had some pointed remarks for his rival in the upcoming presidential election as he addressed a crowd of 3,500 people at the state fair grounds.
“At a moment when homegrown energy – renewable energy – is creating new jobs in states like Colorado and Iowa, my opponent [Mitt Romney] wants to end tax credits for wind energy producers,” Obama said.
Comments from Romney staffers last month about the wind production tax credit generated negative press for the candidate in important swing states like Iowa that have invested big in renewable energy, especially wind.
Romney’s staff indicated that, if elected, he would end the wind production tax credit–or rather let it expire as it is set to do at the end of this year without staging a revival of the policy.
President Obama’s remarks were directed to the 7,000 people that work in Colorado’s wind industry, as well as the nearly 40,000 people all over the country employed in wind that would be negatively impacted if the tax credit is not renewed. He reiterated his campaign promise to reduce “billions in taxpayer subsidies to an oil industry that is already making a lot of profit.”
“Let’s keep investing in new energy sources that have never been more promising,” the president added.
The Romney campaign spokeswoman, Amanda Henneberg, responded to the president’s speech in Colorado by pointing out that during the Obama administration, “the [wind] industry has lost 10,000 jobs while growth in wind power has slowed every single year of his term.”
Henneberg said that Romney will support the wind industry in other ways, like by eliminating regulatory barriers and encouraging free enterprise, market-based competition and technological advances.













