DUBUQUE, Iowa -- Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday lashed out at Mitt Romney in Iowa for the second straight day, this time taking issue with the Republican's reluctance to embrace tax credits for wind and solar energy.
President Obama and his administration have pushed Congress to extend tax credits that they argue would save jobs in the field of clean-energy production. But Romney, in his economic plan, has criticized Obama's investment in renewable energy, singling out solar and wind as "two of the most ballyhooed" forms of alternative fuel.
"We are importing less oil than [at] any time in the last 16 years," Biden said. "But we think you got to bet on it all ... You had our good friend Mitt Romney saying he dismissed wind and solar by saying they're 'two of the most ballyhooed forms of alternative energy.' Tell that to the 7,000 workers manufacturing wind power here in Iowa."
The production tax credit gives wind farms a credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of energy produced. The credit is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Obama also is calling on Congress to extend a 30 percent investment tax credit for manufacturers that invest in equipment to make components for clean-energy projects in the U.S.
Biden also repeated his attack from Tuesday on Romney as an "outsourcer-in-chief" because of his former company's investments in firms that sent jobs to other countries. He pushed back against the Romney campaign's criticism that a Washington Post article on the subject did not differentiate between offshoring -- sending jobs overseas -- and outsourcing, or employing another firm to do work that previously had been done in house.
"If you’re looking for work, that’s a pretty cruel joke," Biden said of the difference between the two terms. "I can picture one guy in my old neighborhood standing next to another guy in an unemployment line saying, 'Hey John, did you get offshored or outsourced? Which happened to you?' Do you think it matters to the American worker?"
The Romney campaign planned to meet on Wednesday with Post editors to seek a retraction for the article, Politico reported. It later reported that the newspaper declined to do so.
With the Supreme Court expected to rule on Thursday on health care, Biden took another jab at Romney by asking the crowd what it thought the Court would look like under the Republican.
"Tell me what you think is going to happen to women's rights in this country, civil rights," he said.
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