MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. —Mixing politics with policy, President Barack Obama returned to North Carolina on Wednesday to step up his wooing of this key election-year swing state and to propose new federal incentives to spur “clean energy” vehicles.
In a speech at the Daimler Trucks manufacturing plant — a rare union shop in right-to-work North Carolina — Obama announced a $1 billion challenge to communities that, he said, could eventually reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and consumers’ exposure to sticker-shock prices at the gas pump.
Those willing to shift to more energy-efficient vehicles, the president said, would be rewarded with bigger tax breaks of up to $10,000 as well as other federal assistance.
“To cities and towns all across the country, what we’re going to say is: If you make a commitment to buy more advanced vehicles for your community — whether they run on electricity or biofuels or natural gas — we’ll help you cut through the red tape and build fueling stations nearby,” he told a crowd that included 450 of the Daimler plant’s 1,450 employees. “And we’ll offer tax breaks to families that buy these cars (and) companies that buy the alternative fuel trucks like the ones that are made right here in Mount Holly.”
The plant, in Gaston County’s second-largest city, manufactures not only diesel trucks but also hybrid and natural-gas versions.
In November, it became the first company to deliver its 1,000th natural-gas truck.
Although the visit was an official taxpayer-funded White House trip, the president often sounded more like a candidate on the stump.
He took jabs at unnamed GOP presidential candidates for what he described as “phony election-year promises” of $2-per-gallon gas and expressed his affection for North Carolina, a state he narrowly carried in 2008 and has now visited four times in less than six months.
