U.S. Sees New Drilling Moratorium in Next Few Days

The Obama administration expects to announce a revised deep-water offshore oil drilling moratorium in the next few days, the White House said on Thursday.

The U.S. government has been working to finalize a new moratorium on drilling that would affect exploratory wells at 500 feet (152 meters) or deeper after a federal court blocked an earlier six-month ban imposed after the start of the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said an announcement on the matter would likely come from the Interior Department.

"I would expect (it) in the next few days," he told reporters at a briefing on efforts to cap the blown-out well. The Louisiana judge had declared the original drilling moratorium as too broad and arbitrary.