Business
Obama to talk promote jobs, discuss energy in North Carolina
U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/File
President Barack Obama will outline incentives to promote development of more fuel-efficient cars and to make it easier for people to buy and operate next-generation vehicles during an election-year visit Wednesday to a North Carolina truck plant.
The morning after Super Tuesday voting, Obama was continuing a schedule of weekly visits to politically important states with his trip to a Daimler truck plant in Mount Holly, N.C. With the price of gasoline at its highest levels for this time of year, Obama once again was promoting policies he says will result in less foreign oil dependency over the long term.
He does so as the Republican field seeking to defeat him in November remains unsettled. Mitt Romney squeezed out a win in pivotal Ohio on Tuesday, captured five other states with ease and padded his delegate lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. But the front-runner was forced to share the Super Tuesday spotlight with a resurgent Rick Santorum.
Obama declined an opportunity to offer Romney any advice before polls closed Tuesday. “Good luck,” was all Obama said.
Like Obama, the Republican candidates have been focused on jobs and the economy.
Wednesday marks Obama’s first visit to a foreign automaker as president, but he is pushing a familiar theme. The White House said Obama would highlight the government’s fuel efficiency standards for cars and medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Obama promoted his energy agenda in Florida and New Hampshire over the past two weeks.
Obama was announcing a US$1 billion incentive proposal to challenge cities and towns to come up with ways to help people make use of fuel-efficient technologies, such as more charging stations for electric vehicles, administration officials said.
