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A month after announcing plans to expand offshore drilling, President Obama visited ground zero of the Gulf Coast oil disaster and warned that residents could be facing a "potentially unprecedented environmental disaster."

Obama's remarks were a stark contrast from his late March proposal to open swaths of U.S. coastal waters in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas drilling.

Obama said then that the decision did not come lightly, but it was one that he approached with confidence.

New offshore drilling in most U.S. waters has been banned since the early 1980s, when mounting public pressure pushed lawmakers into action. A disastrous oil spill off the California coast in 1969 sparked protests that grew into a broader environmental movement, which eventually forced a drilling moratorium.

But as the environmental impact of the Gulf Coast spill comes ashore, the appetite for Obama's offshore drilling plan and the enthusiasm from administration officials appear to have subsided.

"All he has said is that he's not going to continue the moratorium on drilling," White House senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday. "No domestic drilling in new areas is going to go forward until there is an adequate review of what's happened here and of what is being proposed elsewhere."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Sunday that the Gulf Coast disaster "sends out the clarion call that we need to diversify our energy resources."

"Our intention is to move forward thoughtfully, looking at how we can protect the resources of the United States and making thoughtful decisions," he said on CNN's "State of the Union," noting that deep-water drilling has been done thousands of times without incident.

Obama said Friday he still believes that domestic oil production is an important part of the strategy for energy security, but he added, "I've always said it must be done responsibly, for the safety of our workers and our environment."

The president ordered Salazar to conduct a review of the oil spill and report back in 30 days on what precautions, if any, should be required to prevent future accidents.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida has asked Obama to shelve his proposal, at least until the cause of the current spill is fully investigated.

In a letter to the president, Nelson also said he would file legislation "that would, for the time being, prohibit the Interior Department from acting on your administration's plans to expand offshore drilling, including seismic testing and other exploratory operations."

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who in the past has been a proponent of offshore drilling, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that such drilling has "got to be tabled, for sure."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated last week that Obama's offshore plans aren't set in stone

"I think our focus right now is, one, the area, the spill, and two, also to ultimately determine the cause of it and see the impact that that ultimately may or may not have," he said, noting that Obama's announcement was the beginning, and not the end, of a longer process.

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday withdrew his support of a plan to expand oil drilling off the California coast, citing the massive oil spill that resulted from a drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

The announcement assures that no new drilling will take place off the state's coastline in the foreseeable future because Schwarzenegger would have to include the drilling proposal in his May revision of the state budget.

Speaking at a news conference near Sacramento, the governor said television images of the oil spill in the Gulf have changed his mind about the safety of ocean-based oil platforms.

"You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, 'Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?"' Schwarzenegger said.

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As oil spewed Friday from a blown out well in the Gulf of Mexico and spread into Louisiana's sensitive wetlands and rich fishing grounds, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration defended a plan to allow new drilling off California's Central Coast.

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the proposed Tranquillon Ridge project off Santa Barbara County is attractive because the oil company behind the project has agreed to end drilling off the coast in exchange for a permit to do so for the next 14 years.

The governor has touted the Tranquillon Ridge project as a new revenue source for the financially struggling state, which could reap between $1.8 billion and $4 billion over the 14-year lease, depending on oil prices.

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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) said Sunday that the spreading Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that offshore drilling “has got to be tabled for sure.”

“When I flew over it on Tuesday and I saw the magnitude of this thing, it was unbelievable . . . it frightens me,” Crist said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Crist, who days ago left the Republican Party to pursue an independent bid for the state's open Senate seat, has backed off his support for offshore drilling.

If this doesn’t make the case that we have got to go to clean energy . . . I don’t know what does,” he said.

The Obama administration in late March called on Congress to pare back drilling restrictions in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which unlike other coastal regions remains largely under a drilling moratorium.

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