User:Michaeljohnson127/sandbox

Urgent events occurred during Obama's term focused an attention towards the safety of deepwater oil drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the U.S. In April 2010, an explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform event with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened shortly after the Interior Department announced and 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 its effects to recommend policies to counter act future epidemics that could come. The Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) constructed an analysis of the Deepwater Horizon to areas of drilling in the Arctic and deduced that rigs had the sufficient oil spill response plans. Reviews by the United States Environmental Protection Agency has shut down the 2011 session for drilling in the Arctic due to poor air quality within the area located from the Shell offshore drilling fleet but were allowed to try again by the end of 2011. In 2012 the Department of the Interior approved a plan for the Chukchi Sea by Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc., and later the Beaufort Sea, to preserve wildlife habitats and hunting grounds for Alaska natives.

On January 21, 2015 President Obama issued an executive order 13689 - Enhancing Coordination of National Efforts in the Arctic. Changes in the Arctic due to climate change required an updated policy that was collaborated by the federal government, stakeholders, states and Native groups of Alaska. It assigned a committee to include Alaska Native groups to receive their input on activities planned in the Arctic region belonging to the United States. In 2015, A canoer from the Lummi Nation, protested about the 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. The Department of the Interior released plans to reserve the Hanna Shoal from further exploitation of resources in an effort towards wildlife conservation.

During December, 2016, under the authority of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, a new Arctic policy of Barack Obama which included the actions to remove most of the U.S. Arctic waters (and some portions of the North West Atlantic continental shelf) from offshore oil programs. After several days from 2016 presidential election, the Interior Department released its 2017-2022 plan for offshore oil and gas leasing.