In Big Reversal, Obama Takes (Some) Offshore Drilling Off the Table

Finally, an inkling of reason in response to the BP oil spill disaster this summer.

The Obama administration announced today a reversal of Big Proportions to cheers of victory for the environmental world.

A month before the spill began, in a move largely viewed as a bid to appease Republicans, the Interior Department decided that its next 5-year offshore drilling plan would seek to end the longstanding drilling ban in the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico around Florida. Today, citing too much risk of another disaster, the Administration reversed that decision. This ensures there will be no drilling in these areas until at least 2017 (by then, hopefully we'll have come to our senses, and it won't even be a question).

The spill was the event that launched 1,000 campaigns asking Obama to crack down/slow/end various forms of offshore drilling, and this is a victory for many of those campaigns. (A few on our site included petitions from Oceana and Greenpeace and the National Wildlife Federation, along with many users).

But it is not a victory in full.

For one, deepwater drilling in the western Gulf, in the area of the spill, will continue in accordance with revamped safety regulations.

What's even more concerning is that the Administration is still very open to drilling by oil companies in the Arctic's fragile Beaufort and Chukchi seas. The decision, for example, sets the Interior Department on a new course to review Shell's planned project in Alaska's Beaufort Sea. But only after it takes, "utmost caution." Given the acknowledged dangers of a spill in this area, as detailed by Change.org's Paul Tullis recently, I take that "utmost caution" with a grain of salt.

As Defenders of Wildlife said in a statement, “The President now needs to apply the same lessons to the more immediate and very dangerous plans for offshore drilling in the harsh conditions of the Arctic Ocean, where long dark winters and the absence of response infrastructure, combined with the complete lack of effective spill cleanup capabilities, would lead to catastrophic impacts.

The Wilderness Society has been using Change.org to fight offshore drilling in the Arctic. "The Department of Interior must take the time needed to do the Supplemental EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] right—and not rush through it like a teenager writing a term paper the night before it's due."

Secretary Salazar said he'll be careful, but let's make sure that's more than lip service. Sign The Wilderness Society's petition below.

Photo credit: Courtesy of 350.org via Flickr

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