Obama parries Romney on latest green bankruptcy

President Obama's campaign, ahead of Tuesday night’s debate, is seeking to move battles with Mitt Romney over green energy onto more favorable terrain following the bankruptcy of federally backed electric car battery maker A123 Systems.

Romney slammed Obama Tuesday over the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by A123, a company that has received $132 million in grant funding under the 2009 stimulus law, calling it part of a “disastrous strategy of gambling away billions of taxpayer dollars.”

But Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, hit back in what could be a preview of how Obama will address the topic if it surfaces at their second debate Tuesday night.

“Mitt Romney, who would force taxpayers to provide $4 billion a year in subsidies to oil companies making record profits, has tried time and again to discredit clean energy. But Americans aren’t buying it,” he said.

Fetcher also cited Obama’s support for soon-to-expire wind energy tax credits, which the president is asking Congress to extend but Romney opposes. The Obama campaign hopes the tax credit battle will help Obama in swing states where the wind industry has a substantial presence.

“Unlike Romney, the president supports the wind production tax credit, which supports thousands of jobs in states like Iowa and Colorado,” he said.

Fetcher credited White House-backed green energy investments for the growth in wind and solar power generation in recent years, and argued the programs are helping to revive U.S. manufacturing, “including investments that are boosting domestic manufacturing of advanced batteries that would help families save money at the pump.”

Romney and other Republicans have criticized the White House over the collapse of the solar panel manufacturing companies Solyndra and Abound Solar and headwinds facing some other federally backed companies.

“While the President has said he would ‘double down’ in a second term, Governor Romney will return the federal government’s focus to its proper role supporting research and creating an environment where private sector innovation can thrive,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Tuesday.

But the Obama administration has argued those problems should not obscure the successes of the overall Energy Department loan guarantee program and other aid for green energy companies.

And the Energy Department emphasized Tuesday that A123’s battery manufacturing facilities will continue operating. They are being purchased by Wisconsin-Based Johnson Controls, Inc.