President Barack Obama is blasting Mitt Romney for opposing tax supports for wind power.
At a campaign stop in Iowa, Obama accused his Republican challenger of wanting to maintain billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for oil companies rather than investing in what he describes as promising "homegrown energy sources."
Iowa is a center of wind energy production in the United States and the Obama administration credits tax breaks for helping build that industry. The Energy Department says between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs in Iowa are related to the wind industry and that the state gets about 20 percent of its electricity from wind.
On the second day of a three-day bus tour across the state, Obama noted that Romney once dismissed wind power by saying "you can't drive a car with a windmill on it."
Obama is calling on Congress to extend the tax breaks.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has promised voters in coal-rich eastern Ohio that America won't have to buy oil from Venezuela or the Middle East by the time his second term ends in 2021.
Romney stopped Tuesday outside a coal mine in Beallsville, where he said the U.S. would be independent from energy sources outside North America if he were elected in November and served two, four-year terms.
Introducing Romney was Josh Mandel, who is running against Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Mandel accused Democrats of trying to stand in the way of using all energy sources.
Mandel says that would happen only, in his words, "over our dead bodies."
Romney was finishing a four-day bus tour with three stops in Ohio. (AP)
