oil drilling ban

The Obama administration will temporarily ban the sale of new offshore oil drilling leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic coast, Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday, a policy change made in response to lessons learned from BP's horrific Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The U.S. Interior Department has accused the White House of misrepresenting scientists' views to imply they were in favor of an oil-drilling ban. In actuality, the scientists hadn't been asked for their opinions on whether the ban would do any good, according to a department report.

Another oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday gave fresh urgency to the debate over the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. Environmental groups renewed their calls to maintain or expand the ban; advocates for removing it were more circumspect.