PUEBLO — President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited Pueblo’s CS Wind factory, the largest wind turbine tower manufacturing plant in the world, touting his administration’s clean energy investments on the home turf of Lauren Boebert, one of his most vocal Republican critics in Congress.
“As I’ve said for a long time, when I think climate, I think jobs,” he said, standing on a stage before a crowd gathered at the factory. “That’s what climate is about. Not only saving lives and saving the environment, but jobs.”
Biden’s Pueblo visit was part of his “Investing in America” tour, which comes as he prepares to run for reelection next year. The president easily beat Donald Trump in Colorado in 2020, but his margin of victory in Pueblo was narrow, at about 1,500 votes.
With a population of about 112,000, Pueblo is also the largest city in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which Boebert represents. The Garfield County congresswoman narrowly won her race last year and is expected to face a tough reelection bid in 2024.
Speaking from a lectern in front of heavy machinery, Biden lauded his investments that he said has helped boost the economy while allowing more Coloradans to support their families through jobs close to home.
“When you live in a blue state or a red state, you live in rural, urban areas, we’re delivering on that promise,” the president said.
Biden dedicated part of his 22-minute speech to criticizing Boebert’s lack of support for the Inflation Reduction Act. When he mentioned her name, the president paused, smirked and made the sign of the cross on his chest.
“She along with every single Republican colleague voted against the law that has made these investments in jobs possible,” Biden said, a nod to the legislation, which was passed by Democrats in Congress in 2022 and signed into law by Biden.
“And she called this law a massive failure,” Biden said. “Tell that to the 850 Coloradans who get new jobs in Pueblo at CS Wind thanks to this law. Tell that to local economies who benefit from this investment. Tell that to anyone who wants to listen.”
He toured the factory amid its $200 million plant expansion to double manufacturing capacity and add an expected 850 jobs by 2026. The South Korea-based company said the Inflation Reduction Act helped spur the expansion.
Since the company broke ground earlier this year, CS Wind has more than doubled its workforce in Pueblo, hiring more than 500 new employees.
The factory will also be able to produce about 10,000 wind turbine tower sections every year under the expansion, which is expected to be complete next year. The company will be eligible for clean-energy tax incentives under the IRA.
The investment marked the beginning of “a global transition to clean energy to the new innovations and new technology for a better way of life,” Sen. John Hickenlooper said before the president’s speech.
“And I think that this great transition is starting right here, here in Colorado,” Hickenlooper added, calling the IRA the greatest climate investment by any country that will get the country 80% of the way toward fulfilling Biden’s goal of cutting emissions by 50% by 2030.
Investments through the IRA have grown quickly in energy communities, or those historically dependent on fossil energy jobs and tax revenues, including areas with closed coal mines or coal-fired power plants and those with significant employment from fossil fuels and higher than average unemployment, according to a Biden administration analysis released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Treasury.
More than 80% of investments into clean energy announced since the IRA passed have been for projects in counties with below-average weekly wages, data showed, and 86% are in counties with below-average graduation rates.
The portion of clean investment dollars going to low-income counties rose to 78%, from 68%, with the passing of the IRA, the department said.
White House officials said Biden intended to highlight how the legislation is mobilizing companies to invest in clean energy and create good-paying jobs in places, like the 3rd Congressional District, “while extreme House Republicans try to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and deny their constituents the jobs and opportunities that the president’s agenda is creating.”
Boebert, an opponent of the Inflation Reduction Act, released a statement ahead of the president’s visit criticizing Biden for the cost of consumer goods. She encouraged Biden to support her legislation that she says would create new jobs in Pueblo for cleanup at the Pueblo Chemical Depot, which is shutting down after work destroying chemical munitions wrapped up earlier this year.
Biden attended a fundraiser in Cherry Hills Village on Tuesday night where he also blasted Boebert’s refusal to support the Inflation Reduction Act. The president also talked about the need to protect abortion access and prevent Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, from retaking the White House.
The president’s Colorado trip was his second this year. He visited Colorado Springs in June to give the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Biden has visited Colorado five times since taking office in early 2021.