Liberal group goes after GOP on energy

A liberal action group is stepping up its campaign against Senate Republicans over their votes seeking to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases.

The group Americans United for Change (AUFC) announced a new ad targeting all GOP senators, attacking their votes supporting a resolution of disapproval against new EPA rules.

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) failed by a vote of 47-53. Every Republican senator, as well as six Democrats, voted to support it.

The new ad is "the latest but certainly not the last air strike in the overall campaign to pressure Senate Republicans to break their addiction to big oil money," said a spokesman for the group.

AUFC will spend $40,000 to run the ad on major networks in the D.C. metropolitan area. The ad features a series of images from the Gulf Coast cataloguing the BP oil spill's ongoing catastrophe while a stern narrator accuses the GOP of contradictions between their rhetoric and voting on "clean energy future." The ad delivers a topical jab with the lines, "Looks like what the Republicans say ... and what they do ... go together like oil and water."  The ad will run June 16 to 22.

The move comes on the heels of a speech Tuesday evening by President Barack Obama to push for energy legislation, which the White House has said would be its top priority this summer. Other groups have also spent to target individual senators such as Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina.

Earlier this week, AUFC announced a $400,000 local ad campaign in the home states of Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.). Burr and Grassley are reelection hopefuls this year, while Brown, who took the seat of the late Senator Kennedy in February, will try to keep his seat red in 2012.