With national average gas prices ticking up another 2 cents per gallon in the past 24 hours, President Obama left Washington this morning for a two-day tour to promote his "all of the above" energy policy in three election-year swing states and an important oil storage site in Oklahoma.

Obama's official schedule begins with a tour this afternoon of the largest photovoltaic facility in the United States in Boulder City, Nev. But the backlash from critics of the White House's energy policy has already begun.

This morning, the Karl Rove-backed conservative advocacy group Crossroads GPS launched a new national television commercial that bashes the president for contributing to rising gas prices by not promoting new drilling projects and failing to greenlight the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.

Instead of focusing on bringing down gas prices, the group says, Obama is "playing politics" and focusing on controversial clean energy loans to solar manufactures.

Crossroads GPS is spending $650,000 to put the ad on national cable stations and on local broadcast networks in three swing-state markets that Obama is visiting this week: Albuquerque, N.M.; Columbus, Ohio; and Las Vegas.

"Instead of delivering practical solutions to make energy more affordable, President Obama is pursuing restrictive and naive policies that are hurting families at the pump and in their utility bills," Crossroads GPS President Steven Law said in a release today. "There are plenty of supply-boosting solutions Obama could adopt immediately, but he remains obsessed with impractical sideshows like algae and Solyndra business schemes."

After three major energy speeches already this month in Maryland, Virginia and New Hampshire, Obama's GOP critics on Capitol Hill today are also blasting the White House for using historically high winter gasoline prices to hit the road for what they believe to be a taxpayer-funded campaign trip.

At a hearing this morning to discuss the impacts of rising gasoline prices, House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) called Obama's trip "a political attempt to defend his administration's policies, but not the real policies that are contributing to higher gasoline prices."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) released a blog post this morning describing Obama's four-state tour as "a farcical, high-octane public relations tour."

In previewing Obama's stop at the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, the Boehner blog item also references the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy company that received more than half-a-billion dollars through the Department of Energy.

"Solar and wind energy are a critical part of an all-of-the-above approach," Boehner notes. "But America's energy challenges do not stem from a shortage of innovation or government spending. Instead, regulatory roadblocks and burdensome lawsuits continue to plague and delay the ability to move forward with renewable energy projects. On that count, the President has no actions to highlight. All he's left with is, yup, Solyndra."

As he makes his way across the country over the next 48 hours, Obama is expected to encounter a slew of protests.

Despite Obama's planned endorsement of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline during his stop in Cushing, Okla., tomorrow, the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance plans to rally petroleum producers to greet him.

But the president's agenda for this week's energy tour is not just irking conservatives and drilling advocates.

During Obama's visit to Ohio State University tomorrow, a group of protestors is expected to protest the Keystone XL pipeline and urge the president to do more to stand up to drilling advocates.

And with the president expected to highlight his commitment to expanding domestic oil and gas production on federal lands outside Maljamar, N.M., this evening, Ohio State protesters will also call for an end to the controversial natural gas extraction method known as fracking.

"We're in the middle of the hottest spring week America has ever seen," said Bill McKibben, the climate activist and co-founder of 350.org who helped spearhead massive protests against the Keystone pipeline last year, in a release announcing the protest. "It makes it ironic almost to the point of parody that the president is still lauding pipelines and drilling rigs alongside solar panels and advanced batteries, as if all forms of energy were equally benign."

Another group led by the Oklahoma-based Peace House and the Coalition Against Keystone XL Pipeline plans to hold a rally tonight when Obama arrives in Oklahoma City to promote clean energy and an end to the war in Afghanistan.