The League of Conservation Voters is going up with a $500,000 ad buy to run through Oct. 7 in Denver ahead of Wednesday's debate hitting Mitt Romney on his opposition to the wind tax credit.
It features a man -- Chris Maese, of Pueblo, CO -- who says he was a worker at a wind turbine facility in Pueblo and blames Romney's opposition to the tax credit for him losing his job.
"Until a few weeks ago, I had a job building wind turbines," Maese says in the ad, adding, "I got laid off because Mitt Romney and his friends in Congress want to eliminate tax credits for the wind industry. I think Mitt Romney is not in touch with the little guy. He's always been a supporter of big oil. He has friends that are in the big oil industry. That might be great for Mitt Romney and big oil, but try telling that to my kids."
To back up its claim, the group writes in a press release: "Politico reported that senior Senate sources have said that Romney’s opposition to extending the PTC 'derailed' a bipartisan Senate agreement to renew the tax credit. The New York Times similarly reported that 'Senate Republicans removed' the PTC extension from the Senate Finance Committee’s tax extenders package 'to show their loyalty' to Romney. Two weeks later, Vestas announced the layoffs at its Pueblo facility."
Romney's opposition to the Production Tax Credit is something President Obama has pushed in states like Colorado and Iowa, where estimates are that there are about 12,000 jobs in the wind industry. In Iowa, Republicans -- from the state's governor, Sen. Chuck Grassley, and even Rep. Steve King -- are on the opposite side as Romney and criticized him for it.
Ad buyer and NBC partner SMG Delta confirms the ad buy -- $475,000 on local broadcast and another $25,000 on cable.