Environmental leaders are taking to NationalJournal.com's Energy & Environment Blog this week to push Congress to ban offshore drilling in light of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But the oil industry's top trade group maintains the sector is redoubling its safety efforts.

Rodger Schlickeisen, president and CEO of the Defenders of Wildlife, contends that the spill is evidence President Obama should "reinstate the moratorium on all offshore drilling." Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope agrees and takes the industry to task for what he sees as an inadequate safety net. "The intellectual foundation of the off-shore drilling enterprise -- that oil companies knew how to handle ever deeper drilling 'horizons' -- is false. BP doesn't know what it is doing -- and neither do any of the other oil companies," Pope asserts.

Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, contends that the industry is doing as much as it can in the light of the oil spill. "Although an accident like this hasn't occurred in the United States in more than 40 years, it is clear we need to find out what happened and quickly fix any problems," he says. "Our industry recognizes that obligation." He notes that the industry is setting up two task forces to "review technologies and procedures to improve safety." Adding that the U.S. will only consume more energy in the future, he says "the nation needs to rely on all of its energy resources to keep its economy strong and growing."

Other experts are split on what should come next. David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, writes that the U.S. needs to increase domestic drilling so it's not dependent on foreign oil. Richard Revesz, dean of the New York University School of Law, uses a stock option metaphor to argue for holding off on drilling until safer technology lets us minimize potential losses. "Think of a CEO who has stock options. Cashing in on an option for a company about to go into the tank is a bad idea," Revesz writes. "Likewise, when the U.S. government opens up drilling areas, we may be clumsily hitting the sell button before our assets mature."

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