Obama bans new drilling as oil hits Louisiana

No new offshore drilling will be authorized until authorities learn what caused the explosion of the rig Deepwater Horizon, an aide to President Barack Obama said today as oil oozed ashore in Louisiana.

Senior adviser David Axelrod also defended the administration's response to the April 20 accident in the Gulf of Mexico, saying "we had the Coast Guard in almost immediately."

Obama recently lifted a drilling moratorium for many offshore areas, including the Atlantic and Gulf areas. But Axelrod said "no additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what has happened here."

Meanwhile, migrating birds, others nesting on the shoreline, such as pelicans, and even river otters and mink living on Louisiana's fragile islands and barrier marshes were among the animals being hit first by the massive oil spill.

"It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press about the spill. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."

(Via MSNBC)