Oil and environment groups buy ads after climate change speech

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Environmental groups and the oil industry are buying TV ad time in the wake of Pres. Obama's speech this week outlining a plan to fight climate change, according to new federal documents.

Environment America's tv spot thanks Obama for his plan to fight climate change. The ads are set to run on Washington DC Fox affiliate WTTG and CBS-affiliate WUSA between now and July 21, according to documents turned up by Sunlight's ad tracking site, Political Ad Sleuth. The thirty ad spots detailed in those two ad buys will cost about $56,000. Nathan Willcox, federal global warming program director at Environment America, said his group would focus primarily on grassroots advocacy and "less on the paid ad side" as the issue played out.

The American Petroleum Institute, the trade organization that lobbies for the oil and gas industry, has a different view of the plan. In ad buys made Thursday, the group reserved DC air time beginning July 9 and running through July 28 on WUSA. The cost for the 50 ads set to air on the CBS affiliate will be about $70,000, though that may reflect just a fraction of the total buy. The oil lobbying group wasn't immediately available to comment.

The Environmental Defense Action Fund has launched a lower intensity campaign reaching a broader swath of the country. Documents released so far show ads set to air between now and July 7 in Denver, Pittsburgh, Phoenix and Cleveland. The group cut three versions of an ad urging viewers not to "let congress block reasonable limits on climate change." One focuses on "wildfires and drought," another on "damage and heat" and the third on "storms and asthma."