User:Azhi333/sandbox

High-profile events during the Obama presidency focused attention on the safety of deepwater oil drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the U.S. The April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred shortly after the Interior Department released a five-year plan for oil and gas development of the U.S. outer continental shelf (OCS). President Obama appointed a bipartisan committee to determine the causes of the blowout and to recommend policies to prevent future disasters. In 2015, hundreds of kayakers, led by a canoer from the Lummi Nation, protested plans to drill for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea. They surrounded a drilling rig in waters off Seattle, Washington and prevented its departure. In December, 2016, under the authority of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, a new Arctic policy of Barack Obama included actions to remove almost all U.S. Arctic waters (as well as large portions of the NW Atlantic continental shelf) from the offshore oil program. Ten days after the 2016 presidential election, the Interior Department released its 2017-2022 plan for offshore oil and gas leasing.

On May 22, 2010, the White House released Executive Order 13543, creating the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and offshore drilling. The purpose of this commission was to assess the the spill, and the resultant assessment recommended updated safety rules, increased accountability standards, and stricter environmental regulations for drilling activities in US waters. Following the release of this report, the White House produced Executive Order 13547, Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes. Another result of the Commission's report was a "full review of the use of National Environmental Policy Act" by the newly appointed Michael Bromwich and Ken Salazar.

The Deepwater Horizon tragedy resulted in the release of "3.19 million barrels (roughly 500,000 meters cubed) of oil" into the northern Gulf of Mexico. In his formal address to the nation on June 15, 2010, President Obama gave his response to the crisis, discussing the team which he created to "tackle (the) challenge". The team, led by Steven Chu, former Secretary of Energy and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, provided remediation advice for BP which would supposedly "capture up to 90% of the oil leaking out of the well," even before the leak had been completely stopped. The President went on to say that the "oil spill (was) the worst environmental disaster America (had) ever faced," calling it an "epidemic". The President also promised to hold BP responsible "for the damage their company (had) caused".