Interest groups use BP spill for TV ad lobbying

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28189438.htm

A handful of advocacy groups said on Friday they would spend $2.1 million on television ads targeting the massive BP <BP.L> oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a bid to advance climate legislation in the Senate.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, VoteVets.org, Americans United for Change and American Family Voices are mounting separate TV campaigns during Congress' weeklong Memorial Day recess to press Senate Democrats and Republicans to get behind the climate bill introduced this month by Democrat John Kerry and independent Joseph Lieberman.

Ads will appear on national cable TV and local TV broadcasts in a dozen states including Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Wisconsin.

Sponsors said the campaigns, also timed to occur at the start of the U.S. summer driving season, marked the first time advocacy groups cited the oil spill in national advertising.