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Offshore oil drilling in the Arctic
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. The Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) did comparisons of Deepwater Horizon to the areas of drilling in the Arctic and concluded that the rigs had sufficient oil spill response plans. Reviews by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shut down the 2011 season fo drilling in the Arctic due to bad air quality in the area from the Shell offshore drilling fleet but were allowed to restart by the end of the year. 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 a revision of policy that would be collaborated on by the federal government, stakeholders, states and Alaska Native groups. 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, 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. The Department of the Interior released plans to reserve the Hanna Shoal from further exploitation of resources in an effort towards wildlife conservation.

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.