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President Barack Obama on Thursday announced steps to limit new oil drilling and exploration as the investigation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues, telling the American people that he is "fully engaged" and ultimately responsible for what he called a catastrophe.

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Obama said the government would seek aggressive new operating standards and requirements for offshore oil companies. For now, he said, the government was suspending planned oil exploration of two locations off the coast of Alaska, canceling pending lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and the proposed lease sale off Virginia, and halting the issuance of new permits for deep-water wells for six months.

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The main problem, Obama said, was that BP and other oil companies -- along with federal regulators -- never properly determined or prepared for a worst-case scenario.

"On a whole bunch of fronts, you had a complacency when it came to what happens in the worst-case scenario," he said.

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Obama also said the oil spill showed the need for the United States to transition from an oil-based energy system to renewable and cleaner sources of energy that are developed and produced at home, instead of imported from abroad.

While America will continue to use oil in coming years as part of the transition, he noted that the deep-water well involved in the current spill showed how reserves were more difficult to exploit and therefore included more risk.

"The easily accessible oil has already been sucked out of the ground," Obama said. "... We as a society are going to have to make some determinations about what risk we are willing to accept."

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In reaction to the new steps, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska expressed "frustration" about the administration's new roadblocks for the state's oil industry.

The decision "will cause more delays and higher costs for domestic oil and gas production to meet the nation's energy needs," Begich said, as well as costing money and jobs in Alaska.

Begich conceded that the Gulf spill "highlighted the need for much stronger oversight and accountability of oil companies working offshore," but said Shell Oil "can safely explore for oil and gas this summer in the Arctic."

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MMS continues to issue new drilling and related permits, as well as environmental waivers that assume no environmental impact on activities just like those which resulted in the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. But MMS and Interior pretend these newly permitted activities are exempt, grandfathered or different. From the Times:

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In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon, at least seven new drilling permits and five waivers have been granted, according to records.

The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Asked about the permits and waivers, officials at the Department of Interior and the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf.

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It’s not surprising that there would have been ongoing activities at previously permitted wells that would be "grandfathered," even though even those should have been reexmined, because the so-called "moratorium" was supposed to apply to "new permits." But apparently MMS and Dept of Interior are stretching that concept beyond recognition to minimize the moratorium’s scope.

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“We’re also closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews,” he added in reference to the environmental waivers.

But records indicated that regulators continued granting the environmental waivers and permits for types of work like that occurring on the Deepwater Horizon. . . .

None of the projects that have recently been granted environmental waivers have started drilling.

However, these waivers have been especially troublesome to environmentalists because they were provided through a special legal provision that is supposed to be limited to projects that present minimal or no risk to the environment.

At least six of the drilling projects that have been given waivers in the past four weeks are for waters that are deeper — and therefore more difficult and dangerous — than where Deepwater Horizon was operating. While that rig, which was drilling at a depth just shy of 5,000 feet, was classified as a deep-water operation, many of the wells in the six projects are classified as “ultra” deep water, including four new wells at over 9,100 feet.

In testifying before Congress on May 18, Mr. Salazar and officials from his agency said they recognized the problems with the waivers and they intended to try to rein them in. But Mr. Salazar also said that he was limited by a statutory requirement that he said obligated his agency to process drilling requests within 30 days after they have been submitted.

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With, uh, all due respect, Mr. Secretary, this reeks of bad faith and deliberately misleading the public, not to mention executive malfeasance in continuing to allow an agency both you and the President described as operating outside the law to risk endangerment of the public and environment. If the original permits were granted through waivers that did not comply with NEPA, then rescind them.

At a minimum, a moratorium on safety-affected activities to assure full compliance should apply to every activity, previously permitted or not, that involves such critical stages as securing/cementing off a new well and for which the reliability of those measures, the Blowout protector and other critical safety and mitigation features has not yet been confirmed.

The Secretary of the Interior is telling us the executive branch is powerless to stop now demonstrated potential threats to public safety by oil rig operators whose initial permits likely never complied with the nation’s environmental and safety statutes in the first place. If anything, Interior and MMS should be pushing to expand the reach of this essential safety check, not minimize it.

Is there any accountability in this Administration? Because this shell game should get some people fired.

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President Barack Obama used the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to renew his pitch for alternative energy Wednesday, arguing that the unfolding environmental disaster "gives you a sense of where we're going" without comprehensive reform.

"The spill in the Gulf, which is just heartbreaking, only underscores the necessity" of seeking alternative fuel sources.

A failure to enact comprehensive energy reform, he argued, would pose a threat to national security and the economy, as well as the environment.

Obama's remarks came two weeks after Sens. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, introduced a sweeping energy and climate change bill intended to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while reshaping the energy sector.

The House passed its own energy bill last year, and Obama has said he backs the efforts by Kerry and Lieberman to move the issue forward in the Senate. The president asked for Senate GOP cooperation on the issue during a closed-door meeting Tuesday with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The proposal addresses a range of energy issues, including expanded nuclear power production, incentives for the coal industry to seek cleaner methods, money to develop alternative energy sources and programs to help U.S. industry in the transition to a low-carbon system.

On climate change, the measure seeks escalating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades that match the levels set as goals by the Obama administration and contained in the House bill. Among other things, the proposal calls for emissions reductions from 2005 levels of 17 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.

The Senate proposal includes expanded offshore oil drilling as part of a strategy to increase domestic production. However, provisions strengthening the ability of states to prevent more drilling off their coasts were added in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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