Obama puts clean economy at heart of mid-term election campaign

The central role the low-carbon economy is likely to play in November's US mid-term elections will be underlined later today, when president Obama calls on Congress to extend a manufacturing tax credit designed to bolster investment in clean energy.

The president will round off a two-day campaign swing through Missouri and Nevada with a speech at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, highlighting the economic benefits associated with investment in clean energy.

White House officials said he would use the speech to urge Congress to pass a $5bn (£3.3bn) extension to the clean energy manufacturing tax credit. This was introduced in 2009 as part of the administration's economic recovery package.

Obama will speak alongside executives from solar panel manufacturer Amonix, which is planning to use the tax credits to help it build a new factory in Las Vegas.

He is expected to say that the additional $5bn in tax credits will help to attract up to $12bn in private investment, that will in turn create tens of thousands of jobs and help the US to cut its carbon emissions.

However, the proposed extension is likely to face considerable opposition in Congress, where Republicans are seeking to position the US deficit and rising government spending as the defining campaign issue for the upcoming mid-term elections.

In contrast, the Obama administration is increasingly touting its low-carbon job creation programmes as it seeks to drum up support for embattled Democrat senators, such as the Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who is facing a tough re-election battle in his home state of Nevada.

Obama this week announced the award of $1.85bn of loan guarantees for two large-scale solar power projects and yesterday toured an electric truck manufacturing plant in Kansas that received a $32m grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The White House said the Smith Electric plant had created more than 220 direct and indirect jobs and will produce up to 500 electric trucks a year with companies such as Coca-Cola and AT&T already signed up to test the zero-emission vehicles.

Meanwhile, energy secretary Steven Chu yesterday announced the planned conversion of part of a former nuclear test site in Nevada into a state-of-the-art solar technology demonstration zone.