Obama hypes clean energy in Iowa, Colorado radio ads

Radio ads launched Monday in Colorado and Iowa tout the president’s clean-energy policies as job-creating while casting GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget plan as disastrous for that sector.

The ads are part of an eight-state push by the incumbent’s camp, but only Colorado and Iowa listeners will hear how Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s outlook and Rep. Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget plan would hurt the clean-energy industry. President Obama lauded clean energy in a recent tour of both those states, which followed closely on the heels of Romney’s announcement that he favors letting a crucial wind tax credit expire.

The Obama campaign said in one of the ads that “Iowa would get hit hard” in accommodating Ryan’s budget plan, explaining that “renewable energy would be slashed — threatening Iowa’s status as a leader on wind energy jobs.” The Iowa ad also said Ryan’s proposals would gut federal spending on conservation programs that support fishing and hunting.

Voters in Colorado will hear much of the same message. The ad there said Ryan has voted to raise taxes on solar and wind firms. It also contrasted Romney and Obama’s views on clean energy.

The ads show that the Obama campaign believes it can turn Romney’s clean-energy policies into a political liability in certain states. The wind energy industry employs 7,000 people in Iowa, and also has a strong presence in Colorado.

The White House has been vocal about its support of the wind production tax credit (PTC), which pays wind power producers 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. The PTC is set to end Dec. 31, and Obama has repeatedly called on Congress to extend it.

The administration also has pushed a recent Energy Department report that backed up wind industry claims that ending the PTC would cost 37,000 direct and indirect jobs, while extending it would preserve 75,000 jobs.

In July, Romney said the PTC should end as scheduled. His team called the credit unwarranted government intervention in the marketplace, a view that Ryan shares. 

That opinion has played into Republican talking points about Obama’s energy vision: that the president has slowed economic recovery and squandered taxpayer money by pushing for green energy instead of traditional energy sources.