Obama declares ‘new era’ for energy

NEWTON, Iowa - President Barack Obama returned to Iowa on Wednesday, using Earth Day and a wind industry factory to declare "a new era of energy exploration in America" that creates jobs and cleans up the environment.

The visit to the state that launched him on the road to the White House comes as Obama's energy legislation has slowed in Congress, with skeptical Republicans and some Democrats from coal-producing states fearing the plan will increase costs for consumers, send jobs overseas and hurt businesses.

In financially struggling Newton, Obama toured — then highlighted — the Trinity Structural Towers plant as a model for job creation and energy production in a town whose biggest employer was sold and then stopped operations.

The president told cheering employees that he traveled to the factory, which makes the large towers that wind turbines sit on, in order to usher in "a new era of energy exploration in America."

New U.S. oil and natural gas finds should be developed as long as they are environmentally sound, he said, but "the bulk of our efforts" should be in clean energy like wind.

"The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy, it's a choice between prosperity and decline," he said.

Obama announced his administration had created the nation’s first program to authorize offshore projects to generate electricity from wind and ocean currents.

States such as New Jersey and Delaware have offshore wind projects pending, but some other coastal states have seen controversies over the turbines' aesthetics.

Obama said that wind, which now produces 2 percent of U.S. electricity, could generate as much as 20 percent by 2030 and create 250,000 more jobs if its full potential is pursued on land and offshore.

Video   Obama's energy strategy April 22: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack talks to MSNBC about President Barack Obama's "three-pronged" approach to energy policy. Morning Joe

He also announced that he would host world leaders next week to discuss "how we can work together to address this energy crisis and this climate crisis."

Republicans were quick to criticize Obama for opening offshore areas to renewable energy while maintaining a ban on new offshore oil and gas wells on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

"An energy plan without oil and natural gas is like a bicycle without wheels," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement. "If the administration does not act soon to permanently lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, Americans will lose access to enormous amounts of new domestic energy and thousands of high paying jobs in the middle of a serious recession."

Tower factory ramped up quickly
At Trinity, Obama walked the factory floor, chatting with employees while welders working with 20-foot pipes sent sparks flying. Obama also watched a demonstration of how thick slabs of metal were made into cones.

Newton's Maytag Corp. appliances plant closed in 2007, costing the small city hundreds of jobs. But a year later, the state announced that Trinity Structural Towers would build a $21 million factory on the former Maytag site in exchange for business incentives and tax breaks.

Still, the green industry job numbers fall far short of what once existed in some cities and towns.

In Newton, Maytag once employed 4,000 people from a town of 16,000. The new wind energy plant has 90 people working, a number that could group to 140.

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