Americans for Prosperity is working to link the administration’s policies to rising gas prices. | AP Photo Right aims to pin pump pain on W.H.

A key conservative group will launch a new campaign this week aimed at trying to put the blame for high gas prices on the Obama administration.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the libertarian-leaning nonprofit chaired by David Koch, will launch rallies and media campaigns in a series of states — beginning with Nebraska — asserting that the administration’s regulation of the energy industries is key to pain at the pump.


“We want the public to know there’s a reason these prices are going through the roof: It’s because of the environment produced by the regulatory practices of this administration,” the group’s president, Tim Phillips, told POLITICO.

The group doesn’t disclose its donors, though much of the Koch fortune was made in the refining business.

Phillips said the fact that gas prices have more than doubled since the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, when a gallon of gasoline sold, on average, for $1.83, is no accident. In recent weeks, prices at the pump have been nosing toward themost recent spike — $4.12 a gallon — in the summer of 2008, before they plummeted during the global economic slowdown.

Most analysts blame the global economic recovery, as well as turmoil in the Middle East, for much of the increase, but the oil industry and Republican critics have long argued that opening new areas to drilling and speeding the permitting process would lower prices. The administration also has sought to increase taxes for profitable oil companies, saying it would put the proceeds toward longer-term alternative energy solutions but hasn’t offered a quick fix.

“The Interior Department is failing to really push forward permits,” said Phillips.

In fact, Interior has approved 55 shallow-water permits since new safety and environmental standards were implemented last year. Seven permits are pending, and seven have been sent back to the operator for more information.

The 40 deepwater drilling permits approved for 15 wells since late February require subsea containment after industry officials unveiled new well-capping tools. Twenty-five permits are pending, and 20 have been returned for more information.

In addition, 40 permits have been approved for deepwater activities not requiring subsea containment since late February, including water-injection wells and procedures using surface blowout preventers. One of those permits is still pending.

“The president understands the impact that high gas prices, driven by increased global demand and compounded by unrest and supply disruptions in the Middle East, are having on families,” said White House spokesman Clark Stevens. “This is why the administration continues to take steps in the short term to ensure families are not harmed by speculators and over the long term to decrease our reliance on foreign oil and protect consumers at the pump. This includes continuing to focus on domestic production — last year, we produced more oil at home than any time since 2003 — and the president recently announced additional steps that will expand oil and gas development.”

The Americans for Prosperity campaign, under the rubric Running on Empty, will take a decidedly different view of the administration’s actions and will kick off this week with rallies in Omaha and Grand Rapids, Neb., followed by events in Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The local stops, complete with a 14-foot inflatable gas pump, will be paired with a website allowing consumers to see the amount of money they’re losing in price increases and to “send the bill” to Obama, as well as more traditional radio and television campaigns.

“We want to link the regulatory policies of this administration to the fact that these prices are going up,” said Phillips.

Americans for Prosperity and the tea party groups for which it provided early infrastructure and support have been effective foes of energy regulation since the summer of 2009, when they helped kill cap-and-trade legislation that had previously been seen as a bipartisan solution to what parties had seemed to agree was an urgent problem.

The campaign’s announcement follows a week of bad economic news, and it hits the White House at what is a historically vulnerable point for incumbent presidents.

The White House is intensely aware of the political risks on energy. In April, Obama launched a new task force on gas prices and a campaign against “speculators,” but he hasn’t taken action to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or to push for an outsize increase in drilling — which his aides say wouldn’t be a short-term solution either.

“My poll numbers go up and down depending on the latest crisis, and right now, gas prices are weighing heavily on people,” Obama said at a fundraiser in April.

And Phillips’s deep-pocketed group is signaling that the right isn’t about to let up.

“If you look historically at what high gas prices do to presidents, it’s not a pretty picture,” he said.

Darren Goode contributed to this report.