On land or even in shallow water this disaster would have been shut down within days. I too suspect Obama of opening deep-water drilling only for political reasons, but you can't deny that a moratorium on deep water drilling is required while we figure out what must be done to allow us to quickly recover from disasters like this AND fix our broken regulatory and supervisory system. As for shallow water drilling, it's more than apparent that the federal government is not doing the job it has given itself, so I can support a moratorium on new shallow water offshore drilling as well. Although we have good technology for solving similar disasters in shallow water, we desperately need to fix our regulatory structure to provide the intended amount of protection against such disasters happening at all. I fear that the Dems will use this disaster to further federalize the industry and build yet another level of bloated bureaucracy surfing for porn on my dime, but we can't ignore the problems simply because we may make it worse.
There are many things that can be done at little cost to reduce energy consumption, including mandating more modern construction techniques such as 2x6 studs 24" on center with continuous glued gypboard and sheathing or geothermal ground source heat pumps. And in many areas windmills may make sense. But the main thing we can do is to pour research dollars into things like cheap solar panel construction and fuel from waste. I don't know how much available capacity is really there for the taking, but at the least most major universities should be working on these things. I just wish that Congress would change the patent rules, as right now the government can fund the development but the university then owns the patents.