Washington ( CNN ) -- President Barack Obama will not be allowing new drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least seven years , Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday . The exploration of drilling possibilities in sensitive areas of the Arctic will proceed `` with utmost caution , '' he said . Obama 's decision effectively reverses White House plans announced at the end of March to open the Gulf region -- along with other large swaths of U.S. coastal waters -- to oil and natural gas drilling . Under the plan , roughly two-thirds of available oil and gas resources in the eastern Gulf would have been opened to drilling . Areas located within 125 miles of the Florida coast would have remained off limits . Salazar said the seven-year ban is being imposed as a result of lessons learned from the April 20 explosion of BP 's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf , which killed 11 people and triggered one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history . An estimated 4.9 million barrels ( 206 million gallons ) of oil gushed into the Gulf before the broken well , 5,000 feet below the surface , was capped . There is a broader recognition of the need for a more `` robust safety regime '' and additional environmental analysis in the Gulf , Salazar told reporters . He dismissed concerns that the decision will seriously damage efforts to further develop domestic energy resources , noting that roughly 29 million acres already under leases in the Gulf have not yet been developed . Rep. Ed Markey , one of the most vocal BP critics in Congress , said the announcement shows the White House `` has heeded the lessons of the BP disaster . '' `` This plan will move America forward on a prudent path until we can ensure that when an oil company drills ultra-deep , it is ultra-safe , '' the Massachusetts Democrat said . `` Opening up wide swaths of our coasts to oil drilling before we put the proper regulatory measures in place would have been a mistake . '' Sen. Bill Nelson , D-Florida , said it is `` good the president is listening to the people of Florida . '' The administration lifted a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in October . Salazar has argued that the moratorium provided time to make sure accidents similar to the BP disaster wo n't occur again , and that rig operators are prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios if they happen . Critics of the ban , including Republican leaders , Gulf state officials and Gulf Coast residents , said it only hurt oil and gas workers in hard-hit coastal communities , where hundreds of jobs were lost because of the disaster . Lousiana Gov . Bobby Jindal , a Republican and a frequent critic of the Obama administration 's handling of the Gulf spill , said in a statement , `` This announcement from the Obama administration today will undoubtedly send more economic capital and even more jobs overseas , in the wake of those oil rigs that already left our waters for Egypt , the Congo and Nigeria during the 'arbitrary and capricious ' moratorium on deepwater drilling . '' Environmental groups and other supporters of the moratorium argued that it was necessary due to a lack of effective regulation of deep-water drilling that allowed the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent spill to occur . CNN 's Dan Lothian contributed to this report .
NEW : Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco says Louisiana will send ` ` more troops overseas '' Drilling in sensitive areas of the Arctic will proceed ` ` with utmost caution , '' Salazar says . A more ` ` robust safety regime '' and more environmental analysis are needed , he says . The ban is a result of the April 20 BP drilling rig fire and oil spill .