“The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy – it’s a choice between prosperity and decline,” President Obama said in his speech at a wind energy manufacturing facility in Newton. “The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

Obama called investments in wind energy “win-win,” saying it is “good for the environment and great for our economy,” and he described other incentives that his administration supports to encourage energy independence and reduce the impacts of climate change, including “a market-based cap” on carbon emissions.

Enacting such a plan, often called “cap and trade,” will likely be one of the toughest fights Obama will face in Congress this year. In a sign that battle lines are being drawn, Obama described the lack of restrictions on carbon emissions under current law as “the carbon loophole,” a characterization that conservative opponents of his plan dispute but that allies, including former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, have embraced in advertising campaigns.

Conservatives have criticized Obama’s plan, arguing that efforts to further regulate and tax businesses during a recession could lead to further economic decline. They say that government should resist new efforts to manipulate the market by limiting carbon emissions.

But David Osterberg, Executive Director of the Iowa Policy Project, warns that sometimes the market is not equipped to solve problems on its own, and government must step in to create incentives and impose regulations. “If [global warming] is real, then all the government is doing is trying to make the market do what it ought to,” he said. “The market has already demonstrated that it can mess up badly. It is messing up badly when it comes to global warming.”

The facility where Obama spoke was once home to a Maytag manufacturing plant, which closed in 2007, leaving Newton without its major employer. Now operated by Trinity Structural Towers, the factory produces towers for wind turbines, and many of its 100 employees had worked for Maytag.

Obama hailed the Trinity factory and others like it as examples of how alternative energy manufacturing can help towns recover in the wake of serious layoffs.  But such factories are hardly a panacea. The Maytag closing in Newton left hundreds of workers without jobs, and only a fraction of them have been rehired by the wind energy plants that have since come to town. Dozens of other Iowa towns have lost factory jobs in recent years, and only a fraction have been supplanted by jobs in the alternative energy sector so far. In fact, two wind energy plants in eastern Iowa have been forced to lay off more than 100 workers this year.

Osterberg, who recently coauthored a report about Iowa’s growing wind energy capacity, admits that wind energy manufacturing is not likely to reverse the downward trend in manufacturing jobs statewide, but he is bullish on the industry’s opportunities to expand over the coming decades, mitigating the impact of additional manufacturing layoffs in other sectors.

No industry is immune to the current credit crisis, and that was what caused recent layoffs at wind energy production plants, Osterberg said. “People are having trouble financing wind farms because people are having trouble financing anything.”

Specifically with regards to wind energy, Osterberg sees the financial situation improving already, after massive infusions of federal recovery dollars meant to spur investment.

As the economy improves, wind energy manufacturing should continue to grow faster than most other segments of the economy, in part because of how far behind the United States is in wind energy production compared to Europe. Growth might not continue at its current rate — a remarkable 50% per year — but significant expansion will be necessary for the foreseeable future just to catch up to the rest of the world, Osterberg said.

“The new plant in Newton doesn’t take the place of Maytag, but all of the wind plants take the place of Maytag,” he said.

T. Boone Pickens

LE MARS — Iconic Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has thrown his billion-dollar fortune behind a renewable energy plan diminishing the very black gold that made him rich.

Pickens, the 80-year-old chairman of BP Capital Management and a man CNBC calls the “oracle of oil,” pitched his so-called Pickens Plan in Le Mars Thursday to a crowd of nearly 700 people.

The plan, which Pickens detailed using a blackboard and a healthy dose of front-porch-swing humor, seeks to break the United States’ $700 billion annual dependence on foreign oil through investment in domestic resources, primarily wind and natural gas.

He said the dependence on foreign oil is the major economic and security problem facing the United States.

“I don’t think there’s anyone there who cares one hoot about us — other than our money’s good,” Pickens said.

Pickens, who is spending $58 million on a national advertising campaign and has been pulling crowds like the one in Le Mars at town-hall style meetings around the nation, envisions private industry funding the installation of thousands of turbines in the wind belt, an area he describes as running from Texas to Canada.

He thinks wind energy can provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply. He said Iowa would be a “big” player in the emerging wind-energy corridor.

As more wind power electric plants, Pickens sees the natural gas that had been used there going into transportation fuels to replace gasoline and diesel.

The Pickens Plan Web site already has had 4 million hits. Politically, Pickens’ plan is to build a grass-roots and business support base behind the energy plan so he can leverage a buy-in from Congress.

“The leadership is not in place unless you build a fire under their ass — and I’m not kidding,” Pickens told the Le Mars crowd.

Pickens said he had no interest in running for office himself, making a Ross Perot-style independent bid for the White House.

“If I was 60 years old I could beat both of these guys,” said Pickens — whose upcoming book is titled “The First Billion Is the Hardest.”

Pickens, who funded the Swift Boat ads that devastated U.S. Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, insisted under repeated questioning from Iowa Independent following the Le Mars event that he has no intention of backing either U.S. Sen. John McCain or U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

“I’ve said this is a totally non-partisan issue,” Pickens said. “it doesn’t have anything to do with politics. This is about America is what it is. Nothing like that would happen.”

Pickens said he hopes both candidates support his plan and he is ironing arrangements to meet with them soon.

When asked if he was 100 percent absolute on not making an endorsement Pickens said: “That’s not the deal. I want to put the pressure on both of these guys. I want them to come up with an energy plan and I think mine is the best. So, yes, I’d like for them to say ‘Boone has the best plan.’”

Pickens said he had no intention of forcing a competition between McCain and Obama for the support of his growing organization in order to get more of his plan in one of the party’s platforms.

“I don’t think so,” Pickens said. “That’s going to confuse you and everybody else.”

And, although he backed Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and Rudy Giuliani, in addition to the campaign against Kerry, Pickens thinks conservatives who are pushing for more domestic oil drilling this year are off base.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, authored the Wind Energy Incentives Act of 1993, which established the first wind energy production tax credit. Although the production tax credit has come under scrutiny by Congress, especially in recent years, the program has been reauthorized — mostly in one or two year increments. It is currently funded through Dec. 31 and provides a 2 cent-per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit.

On Wednesday, a Senate vote on an amendment to the economic stimulus bill (HR 5140) that would have extended the production tax credit for an additional year fell one vote short of the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster. Both Grassley and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA, voted in favor of the extension. Before the final count was taken, Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, switched his vote from yea to nay in order to maintain the option of reintroducing the proposed legislation.

Congressman Bruce Braley, a Democrat representing Iowa’s 1st District, is hoping his newly introduced bill will once again provide longterm stability for those considering an investment in wind as an alternative energy source.

“One of the things this bill will do is to provide a more predictable market for producers and investors who know that there’s going to be a longer term tax credit,” Braley said during a conference call on Thursday.

Braley’s Clean Energy Investment Act of 2008 would extend the production tax credit for seven years, providing wind energy producers with the incentive to expand their operations.

“Iowa has the potential to be the wind energy capital of the Midwest,” he said. “Wind energy is good for the economy, good for the environment and good for farmers. That’s why we need to do more to encourage the development of Iowa’s wind energy industry.”

On Friday, after reading the press release on the proposed legislation, Grassley wrote a letter of appreciation and caution to Braley.

“I’m sending this letter today because of news reports this morning indicating that House leaders may schedule action — both in committee and on the floor — next week on an energy tax package,” Grassley wrote. “I’d rather sit down and talk with you about these issues, but there’s so little time that I wanted to get word to you and others in the Iowa delegation right away about what’s at stake with this legislative debate for wind energy in particular.”

Grassley, who also expressed his doubts that the production tax credit could be extended for more that a couple years due to “House rules requiring paygo,” explained how he was able to diffuse an attempt last year to cap the wind energy credit and his concern that such a cap might be proposed again.

“I want to do everything possible to make sure another effort to cap this credit is stopped,” he continued. “Although I believe our Senate action was heard loud and clear over in the House and another attempt to limit the wind energy production credit is unlikely, I urge you to make your views known direction to Ways and Means Committee Chairman [Chuck] Rangel. … Wind energy tax policy has been one of my most successful initiatives, and I look forward to your continued support for proven tax policies that help to develop wind and other home-grown sources of alternative energy.

Iowa’s wind energy production currently ranks fourth in the nation. According to the American Wind Energy Association, however, Iowa could product over 62,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity. Currently the state is producing 1,273 megawatts — or roughly enough to power 315,000 homes. Braley’s bill does not call for an increase of the 2-cent credit, and, in a press release, Braley explained that since a wind farm produces electricity at about 7.6 cents per kWh, the existing credit “helps make wind competitive with convention production” such as coal plants, which produce at about 5.4 cents per kWh.