Vestas Wind Systems, the Danish company pimped by Congressman Ed Perlmutter in a recent piece of taxpayer funded "franked" mail, is getting closer to laying off up to 1,600 Coloradans. Not only could those Coloradans see their jobs axed, but Ed Perlmutter's own job security could be in peril as well.

Reports the Pueblo Chieftain:

Starting last January, the warning has come like a steady drumbeat — unless Congress extends a federal tax credit for wind turbine users, Vestas and other wind-power manufacturers will have to start laying off workers in Colorado and elsewhere.  

In the case of Vestas-American Wind Technology, the company has four plants in Colorado, totaling about 1,800 workers, including its plant south of Pueblo. Vestas officials have told Colorado's congressional delegation that 1,600 of its jobs are at risk unless the federal tax credit is extended into 2013 at the very least.

Perlmutter's pimping of a foreign energy company that relies on US taxpayer subsidies to survive is not a helpful story line to the incumbent.

With a strong challenge coming from former Coors Tek CEO Joe Coors Jr, Perlmutter is no doubt worrying about the impact of massive job loss being tied to his record in Congress. 

But since most of the GOP Congressional delegation from Colorado unfortunately also supports the wind subsidy, Perlmutter would be protected from the full brunt of the fallout. That is, he would if this wasn't also part of the story line:

From The Washington Times in 2009:

Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado inserted a provision into the recently passed House climate change bill that would drum up business for “green” banks, such as the one he has invested in and his family and a political donor helped found in San Francisco.  

The bill calls on bank regulators to promote green banking and says federal dollars should be used to support energy-efficient home improvements at government-funded housing projects.  

Mr. Perlmutter, a two-term Democrat, has two investments in the 3-year-old New Resource Bank, which calls itself the nation’s first green bank. Among other environmentally conscious banking products, the bank offers home equity loans for consumers to make their homes more energy efficient, in addition to construction loans for green builders.

With massive job losses and corrupt dealing on green banks tied together in the same narrative, well, you can imagine the rather effective TV ads and mail pieces that could result. 

There is a reason the first couple of campaign ads coming out of Barack Obama's re-election campaign have been to push back on Solyndra attacks and high gas prices. 

Voters are not pleased with the Obama/Perlmutter energy policy. 

If 1,600 Coloradans lose their jobs with Obama and Perlmutter in office, neither may be come next January.