Oil billionaires’ ads falsely attack an Iowa success story

By Gene Fraise

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As I prepare to step down from public life, it's been an honor and privilege to serve the people of Southeast Iowa.

Fort Madison and other towns have struggled over the years as we saw our businesses leave and take their jobs out of Iowa and go overseas. Then, thanks to the irresponsible and reckless actions of Wall Street, we were hit with the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

President Obama inherited a mess that saw us hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. But now, we see manufacturing and jobs are recovering. Iowa's unemployment rate has dropped to a 34-month low of 5.3 percent and we've added 18,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010.

And one bright spot in this has been the clean energy economy. Thanks to the Obama Administration's stimulus investments in renewable energy, our thriving wind industry has survived the recession and become a nationwide leader in wind energy. In Lee County, our largest employer is Siemens Wind Power, which is manufacturing wind turbines and employs about 700 people.

This is why it is painfully frustrating for me to see the television attack ads on President Obama's clean energy record launched by out-of-state oil billionaires. These ads ridiculously claim that the president helped create jobs in Mexico and China and have been repeatedly debunked by independent analysts. Mitt Romney and his billionaire oil friends just need to come to Fort Madison and see how renewable energy investments are creating good-paying jobs producing homegrown, clean Iowa energy. Iowa is now the top state in the nation for wind jobs.

Before Siemens came to Fort Madison, the building had been abandoned for five years. Thanks to robust incentives for wind production and $3.5 million in manufacturing tax credits included in the Recovery Act, Siemens was able to increase production of its next-generation blade, which has expanded the plant and nearly doubled employment. Besides Fort Madison, Iowa now has turbine or power production facilities in West Branch, Cedar Rapids and Newton.

Romney and his oil friends have no use for these clean energy investments that are creating jobs here in Iowa and would rather keep us addicted to Middle East oil.

In Mitt Romney's jobs plan released last fall, he said wind and solar power “make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies.” Romney also said the highly skilled personnel who design and build heavy capital equipment like wind turbines “comprise only a minuscule fraction of the U.S. labor force” and “would not make much of a dent in the overall employment picture.” Tell that to the people of Fort Madison, now able to make a decent living and support their families thanks to the president's strong support for renewable energy.

In Iowa, both Republicans and Democrats have seen the value of investing in clean energy to create an economy built to last. It's outrageous that oil billionaires are spending millions to falsely slander this industry and President Obama's record.

In November, we can continue what we started with President Obama and continue to bring manufacturing back to Iowa and strengthen our middle class.

Gene Fraise is a state senator from Fort Madison. Comments: eugene.fraise@legis.iowa.gov