Barack Obama, Offshore Drilling | featured news

President Barack Obama will not be allowing new drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least seven years, according to a senior administration official.

Energy companies in the Gulf of Mexico will have to permanently plug nearly 3,500 nonproducing wells and dismantle about 650 unused platforms, the Obama administration says.

The Texas attorney general sued the Obama administration on Wednesday over its new deepwater offshore drilling moratorium, claiming that it is unjustified and that federal officials did not contact the state before issuing the ban.

The owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which is spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, on Tuesday criticized President Barack Obama's six-month ban on deepwater drilling.

Is President Obama bowing to criticism that he hasn't shown enough emotion and outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? In an interview with the "Today" show's Matt Lauer on Tuesday morning, the president offered his bluntest response yet about the disaster, telling Lauer he's been talking to experts about "whose ass to kick" when it comes to responsibility for the mess.

President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday that a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling will continue for six months while a commission studies the reasons for the Gulf of Mexico spill, a White House aide said.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown is not backing off his charge that the Obama administration wants to use the Gulf Coast oil spill as a plot to put an end to offshore drilling.