Why was offshore oil drilling banned in the first place?”
This scared the general public and gave environmentalists the ammunition to halt any additional exploration. The feud between oil exploration and the environmentalists has continued to rage over the ensuing decades and is responsible for the restrictions we have in place today. The spill prompted a major change in the safety of off shore drilling by putting a shut off valve in the pipe 100 feet below the ocean floor. This is why we saw no significant spills from Katrina or Rita in the gulf. The is always the argument of the Exxon Valdez when off shore drilling is discussed. This accident however, had nothing to do with off shore drilling but is an example ecological damage as a result of spills in the water. This too prompted major changes and is why all tankers are built with double hulls today. Environmentalists keep these events forefront in our minds and have used them to argue against and additional drilling. In fact even on shore or off shore in the available areas, drilling is d
