From a wind-power factory in this battleground state, President Obama urged Congress to extend tax credits he said would save jobs in the field of clean-energy production.

Obama said continuing the production tax credit would save 37,000 jobs that would otherwise be at risk, an estimate his aides based on reports from industry officials.

"If Congress doesn't act, companies like this one will take a hit. Jobs will be lost. That's not a guess. That's a fact," Obama said Thursday as he visited TPI Composites, a wind turbine blade manufacturer based in a town that's home to a closed Maytag factory. "We can't let that happen. We can't walk away from these jobs."

The production tax credit, created in 1992 and extended nearly continuously since then, gives wind farms a credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of energy produced. Industry advocates said it spurred $15.5 billion a year in private investment in the U.S. in the last five years. The credit is scheduled to expire at the end of the year.