Potential US presidential candidate Mitt Romney has promised his country would have energy independence by 2021 if he came into power.

Speaking in Ohio this week, the Republican Party candidate declared the States wouldn’t have to rely on energy from Venezuala and the Middle East by the end of his second four-year term in the White House, reported AP.

Barack Obama and his challenger have been squaring off over energy ahead of elections in November later this year, with the President critical of Romney’s dismissal of wind power.

The Mormon politician has been favourably name-checking oil, gas and coal, while his running partner Paul Ryan said in Colarado this week one of the “number one” solutions to unemployment is “make sure that we use our own energy because we have our own energy in this country. All of it.”