It was politics as usual as the Obama administration lifted its six-month deepwater drilling ban, just in time for election season.

The ban, which was enacted in the weeks following BP Plc's Macondo well blowout on April 20 and subsequent oil spill, brought deepwater exploration to a halt for nearly six months, with the original plan to keep activity locked up until late November.

During the five-month moratorium, the Obama administration dodged numerous complaints and challenges to the legitimacy of the ban, including New Orleans federal judge Martin Feldman overturning the 180-day drilling moratorium in June. The administration stood its ground, maintaining the ban would remain in place for the full duration of the original announcement.

However, the White House made a drastic about-face. After five months of complaints from the oil and gas industry that the ban would be devastating to an economy already shaken by a recession, the White House reversed its controversial decision on October 12.

A welcome return to reason? More likely, the upcoming midterm elections, in which the possibility that Democrats would be made the whipping boys for a slow economic recovery forced the administration to switch tactics to appeal to voters.

This decision came with some strings attached, of course, namely new and more stringent drilling rules that were put into play shortly before the end of the ban.

Among the new rules announced by the U.S. Department of the Interior on September 30, operators must comply with stricter safety measures and demonstrate the availability of adequate blowout containment resources before a permit is approved.

The drilling safety rules make mandatory several requirements for the drilling process: proper cementing and casing practices and the appropriate use of drilling fluids to maintain well-bore integrity. The regulation also strengthens oversight of mechanisms designed to shut off the flow of oil and gas, primarily the blowout preventer and its components, including remotely operated vehicles, shear rams and pipe rams.

Raymond James Equity Research analyst J. Marshall Adkins says that the stock market responded favorably immediately following U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's statement regarding the change in the drilling-ban status—however, he sees few truly positive effects for the industry.

Before the spill, the number of rigs operating in the deepwater Gulf was supposed to reach more than 40 by 2012. But Adkins says the number will probably be closer to 20 as rigs continue to leave the region.

Adkins adds that the move to end the moratorium early had more to do with the looming political elections in early November than it did the desire to put deepwater drilling and production back in business.

Adkins says, "…we believe this is more political grandstanding ahead of the midterm elections rather than a fundamental change for deepwater drilling in the Gulf."

U.S. House Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), who represents the 22nd Congressional district, said lifting the ban is welcome news, but the moratorium was never necessary anyway.

"The ban wasn't based on science or engineering—just politics," said Olson. "The administration now needs to streamline their new permitting process and prevent a de facto moratorium in deepwater like the one in place on shallow-water permitting."

American Petroleum Institute president and chief executive Jack Gerard has warned, "Without additional resources and a serious commitment by the government to process and approve permits and other requirements expeditiously, the moratorium will give way to a de facto moratorium, which will continue to cripple the already hard-hit Gulf region and cost more than 175,000 American jobs a year."

Now that that ban seems to have ended, at least on paper, what next? Status quo ante bellum? Remember, before the spill disaster, the administration had just barely begun to push for more drilling offshore the U.S., including in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and—gasp—the Eastern Seaboard. The nightmare image of the Gulf oil spill may have scared the U.S. away from this, which is probably the true legacy of the Macondo spill.

Not that you're supposed to think about that. It's election season, after all. Let unimportant topics like energy needs keep until 2011.

As with voting, dodging the bullet of actually dealing with U.S. energy supply has become another American tradition.