Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) called on President Obama today to be more "active and engaged" in a push for legislation that would send Deepwater Horizon spill penalties to the Gulf Coast for economic and environmental restoration.

Landrieu wants Obama to mention her bill, the "RESTORE Act," which directs spill fines to restorations, during his State of the Union speech tonight.

The bill would capture 80 percent of the potentially billions of dollars in fines and send it to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas to fund restoration projects.

"We're hoping that the president, who's already given his support, will be more active and engaged, because we do need his leadership," Landrieu said in an interview.

Without a change in the law, the money would flow into the Treasury to pay for future oil spill cleanups.

"I mean, he made some pretty big promises to the Gulf," she said, "and this would be a way to meet those promises and to fulfill them."

Landrieu said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was scheduled to meet with House Transportation Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) this week to try to build support in the lower chamber for the proposal.

Nine of 10 Gulf Coast senators are co-sponsoring the Landrieu bill, which she said is "very close" to having the filibuster-proof support of 60 senators.

Complicating matters, particularly in the Republican-dominated House, is Landrieu's proposal to extend an oil drilling tax of 8 cents per barrel for three years to offset the $1.2 billion price tag attached to the legislation by the Congressional Budget Office (E&ENews PM, Dec. 6, 2011).

"If they can come up with a better offset, we've said, 'Look, we won't argue,'" Landrieu said. "But this is one the Senate can agree to on both sides."