Ryan says in Ohio pipeline key to creating jobs

Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. speaks dur­ing a cam­paign event Mon­day in Swan­ton. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Mary Altaffer)

JOHN SEEWER

Asso­ci­ated Press

SWANTON — Mitt Romney’s admin­is­tra­tion would imme­di­ately approve a pipeline that would run from Canada to U.S. refiner­ies in Texas, cre­at­ing thou­sands of jobs and push­ing Amer­ica on its way to energy inde­pen­dence, Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Paul Ryan said Monday.

Ryan told sup­port­ers dur­ing his third trip to swing state Ohio in the last two weeks that the United States has enough energy resources in North Amer­ica to become energy inde­pen­dent within eight years.

“We need to unlock the energy we have in this coun­try to cre­ate jobs,” he said.

Ryan crit­i­cized Pres­i­dent Barack Obama for stand­ing in the way of the Key­stone XL pipeline and said the Demo­c­rat pushed too many envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions that have cost jobs in the coal indus­try, a thorny issue for the pres­i­dent in south­east Ohio where coal has a large footprint.

“All that does it take away our home pay and send jobs over­seas,” Ryan said.

Obama ear­lier this year objected to the Key­stone pipeline’s pro­posed 1,179-mile route over envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns, sug­gest­ing that the pipeline should go around a sen­si­tive aquifer in Nebraska. But Obama encour­aged the com­pany to pur­sue a shorter project from Okla­homa to the Gulf Coast.

Approv­ing the entire pipeline would get peo­ple back to work in con­struc­tion and fac­to­ries, Ryan said.

“Think of the jobs right there,” he said.

The Wis­con­sin con­gress­man said Ohio and other indus­trial states have lost jobs because of Obama’s poli­cies. He said the Toledo area is a lot like his home­town of Janesville, Wis.

“We’re fac­tory towns. We’ve lost fac­to­ries,” he said. “We need them back.”

Ohio AFL-CIO spokesman Mike Gillis defended the president’s eco­nomic record in the state, where the unem­ploy­ment rate has dropped more than 3 points since its peak dur­ing the recession.

“The res­cue of the auto indus­try was a big part of that,” Gillis said in a state­ment. “Unpop­u­lar at the time, Pres­i­dent Obama showed the very lead­er­ship that was needed to save this impor­tant sec­tor of the Ohio economy.”

Ryan’s stop in Ohio is kick­ing off another busy week for can­di­dates on the cam­paign trail in the prized swing state. Both Obama and Rom­ney will be in Ohio on Tuesday.

Obama will attend a rally in Colum­bus on the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity campus.

Rom­ney will be at a cam­paign event Tues­day night in Cuya­hoga Falls and then stay for a cou­ple more stops in cen­tral Ohio on Wednesday.

Posted by AP News on Oct 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.