With rising gasoline prices consuming more attention in the halls of Congress and on the campaign trail, both parties are refining their election messaging to assuage concerns of voters who are projected to be paying upward of $5 per gallon by this summer in some parts of the country.

For Republicans, the rising prices are increasing optimism about their chances of retaking the Senate in November and bolstering their aggressive push for legislation that would mandate approval of a controversial oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast.

"The president has remained obstinate in his objection to the Keystone XL pipeline, the jobs that can be created and a source of oil from a friendly country like Canada, which would be refined in the United States and bring down the price of gas at the pump," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which directs the party's campaign efforts. "So I think right now, I think our prospects are looking up."

For Democrats, the rising prices present a trickier situation as the party tries to simultaneously argue that little can be done to bring them down in the short term while promoting President Obama's call for an "all of the above" strategy that would include more oil and natural gas drilling, incentives for alternative fuels, more efficient cars and other efforts.

"I think that voters understand the impacts they've heard about gas prices and all of this we've been through many times," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is Cornyn's counterpart as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "And they also know that we're working hard to make sure that we have a balanced energy program that has been opposed by the other side."

But there are immediate political concerns for Democrats up and down the ballot. A new CBS poll put Obama's approval rating at 41 percent -- down 9 points in just a month. Pollsters attributed that dip in part to the spike in gas prices. Republicans, who are defending far fewer Senate seats than Democrats this year, need to flip four in November to take the majority -- and just three if Obama loses his re-election bid. Only two weeks ago, Republicans were dispirited about their prospects for a Senate takeover following the surprise retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), but they are now feeling more bullish.

The Obama administration, for its part, has been arguing that it is doing all it can to bring down gas prices, while simultaneously emphasizing the lack of a "silver bullet" that would produce an immediate solution. Questioned about a CBS News poll showing that 54 percent of voters think gas prices are something the president has a lot of control over, White House spokesman Jay Carney yesterday reiterated the administration's efforts, pointing to increased domestic production of oil and natural gas and efforts under way at the Justice Department to investigate fraud and speculation among oil traders.

Obama "is looking at a variety of ways that we can reduce the price of -- if possible, reduce the price of gas, or relieve the pressure that is driving the price of gas up in this country. And that includes relieving bottlenecks and issues like that around the country," Carney said. "But it is a fallacy, as I said yesterday, to suggest that there is some three-point plan or five-point plan out there that could magically, if you wave a wand, reduce the price that Americans are paying per gallon of gas."

Republicans are not buying that view. They point to the president's rejection of Keystone XL as their top concern in the immediate future, and it is certain to remain a major GOP talking point.

"The president has been a complete obstructionist on that, and his -- his energy policy, if you want to even call it a policy, has in my opinion actually contributed, if not caused, the pain at the pump," said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) during a GOP press conference yesterday. "And he should be held -- held fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline."

Barrasso is likely to cruise to re-election this fall, but other Republicans in tighter races are trying to downplay the implications of high gas prices even as they use them to advance the party's broader arguments on energy policy.

"I don't think it has anything to do with me being up for re-election -- this is an issue that's affecting everybody," said Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who is one of his party's more vulnerable members as he tries to keep his seat in a heavily Democratic state. "This is an issue that has been a problem before, it's a problem now, it'll be a problem into the future. We need to do a total approach, as the president has said [and] that I've called for forever: wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, coal, siting, permitting, conservation. ... So to me, that pipeline was a no-brainer; it's just another tool in the toolbox."

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who faces a tough Republican primary this spring, said high gas prices were "bound to be a political issue" because the administration will argue it is trying to bring down oil prices. And while it may be true that factors outside of the president's control affect global markets that establish those prices, it is fair to use voter fears about high gas prices as a mechanism to address broader administration policy, he said.

"It's only fair in the sense of the overall energy policies and whether they have been comprehensive enough and effective," Lugar said. "And the idea is that if you're the president, you have an opportunity and a platform and the bully pulpit. If you don't use it effectively and the net effect is costs for the American public, then there will be some penalties for that."

Bolstering GOP claims that Obama has fallen short on his promise to pursue an "all of the above" energy policy, the American Petroleum Institute yesterday released a white paper arguing that oil and gas production from federal lands and waters has fallen over the last three years. The administration's oft-repeated argument that overall production has increased is based on figures that incorporate activity on private land where production has boomed, API said.

API, the oil industry's primary lobbying arm, says the administration has closed areas to drilling, slowed permit approvals and threatened to eliminate certain tax breaks for oil companies that would increase costs -- all moves that send the wrong signals to markets.

"It simply has not done all it should have done and can do to bring new supplies to market," said Erik Milito, API's upstream director, during a conference call with reporters.

Democratic push-back

Democrats hoping to maintain control of the Senate in November are generally backing the administration's approach of pointing to its broad support for a variety of energy sources while arguing that the problem of high gas prices lacks a short-term solution.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is one of the vulnerable Democrats who will have to navigate frustration over high gas prices as he ramps up his re-election campaign over the summer. In an interview yesterday, he pointed to calls for increased regulation on oil traders to reduce speculation as one strategy to reduce oil prices. He said voters would support lawmakers who were trying to pass constructive policy, even if no major changes are made between now and November.

"I think if they have a sense that you're working on pushing ways to fight back against it, and you're doing it in a way that's bipartisan, they appreciate that," Casey said. "But if they think you're just throwing up your hands and being partisan, I don't think that's very productive."

Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), who is expected to have a much easier time retaining his seat when he faces re-election in November, said Democrats should warn against quick-fix solutions to high gas prices as something akin to political snake oil and instead should take a long view that emphasizes efforts to reduce consumption while also increasing access to domestic supplies.

"When people tell the voters they have a way to fix gas prices overnight or in a period of a couple weeks, folks should heed the old adage, let the buyer beware," Carper said. "What we're doing as a nation is taking a long-range view and that is to ensure that cars, trucks and vans being built in this country are far more energy-efficient ... to make sure that we're doing smart things like converting especially large vehicles to natural gas ... to make sure that we are drilling."

Other Democrats acknowledged that little was likely to happen in Congress this year, but they said it was important to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive energy policy that should have been put in place decades ago.

"You know, we've had this problem for eight presidents' [terms in office], and unless we keep moving at it and get an energy policy that makes sense for the country, we're going to have this problem repeating every year or every couple of years because we have not done everything that we need to do to address our energy security," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is not up for re-election until 2014.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who is among her party's biggest supporters of increased oil and gas exploration, said both parties share some blame for the fractured state of domestic energy policy -- Republicans for consistently favoring only more exploration, and Democrats for resisting those efforts in favor only of efforts to use less oil and gas all around. Landrieu also does not face re-election until 2014.

"Any thinking person knows that both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of staying in their silos on energy policy and not willing to come to the middle," Landrieu said, explaining that a centrist policy including more exploration and better fuel efficiency, for example, would help U.S. consumers even if it did not bring down global oil prices. "So while we can't necessarily control the world price of oil -- even if we drilled everything in America, we can't control the world price of oil -- what we can control is how much our people are reliant on petroleum products."