‘Top Line’ – Oil Spill as Energy ‘Wake-Up Call’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: With the calamity in the Gulf spilling into politics, environmental activists are hoping to reorder the traditional politics around energy. “This should be a wake-up call that it's time for the country to get in a new direction,” Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said on ABC/Washington Post’s “Top Line” today. “We need to stop new drilling; that makes sense. We need to clean up the mess obviously, make polluters pay. But most importantly we need to end our dependence on foreign oil and move in an entirely new direction, a comprehensive new clean energy policy. That's the solution we need. Hopefully politicians up on Capitol Hill — this will be the wake-up call: It's time to get serious.” As environmental groups press for the Senate to act on a comprehensive energy bill, Karpinski’s group is getting involved in a high-profile Senate race in Arkansas, where Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., faces a primary run-off next week. The League of Conservation Voters is airing an ad that uses footage of the BP incident to attack Lincoln as the candidate of “big oil,” in an effort to replace Lincoln with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, D-Ark. “She's one of their best friends in Congress,” Karpinski told us, referencing Lincoln. “She sponsored the big oil bailout resolution. She's voted for more drilling. She's on the wrong side of this issue, and voters of Arkansas need to know that.” Watch the full interview with Gene Karpinski HERE. For our “Post Politics” segment, we chatted with Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post about Tuesday’s races, plus an intriguing story he wrote in today’s Post about some difficulties African-American candidates are running into, in the age of Obama.