In his June remarks from the Oval Office, U.S. President Barack Obama called the Gulf of Mexico oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced." But his administration sure didn't act like it. Instead the federal government responded to the crisis in the gulf with ineptitude and inattention.

In truth, Obama began playing the wrong cards even before the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. On March 31, Obama announced that the administration would open access to waters in the Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling, but he also cancelled a number of already-pending lease sales.

STATIC KILL: Ships prepare to begin operations to repair the damaged BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on August 3 (XINHUA)

The decision was an unfavorable one among both critics and proponents of offshore drilling. Proponents pointed out that the president's plan would put 13 billion barrels of oil and 49 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off limits. Environmentalists, on the other hand, blasted Obama's announcement, saying it was a step in the wrong direction and that the United States needed a quicker transition to carbon-free sources of energy.

When the accident occurred and tragically took 11 lives, we heard very little from President Obama or the federal government. It took more than a month for the president to address the oil spill seriously, and when he did, his message was the wrong one. Instead of discussing the federal efforts to prevent environmental and economic damage, he politicized the crisis by making a pitch for "clean energy" legislation, most notably cap and trade. He also suspended or canceled a number of lease sales off the coast of the United States and extended a moratorium on deep-sea offshore oil drilling permits.

This is not what the public—especially residents in the Gulf of Mexico—wanted to hear. There was no scientific or technological basis for the ban; it was a senseless political decision that is pouring salt into the economic wounds of the gulf. Not only will the moratorium affect the thousands of workers on the rigs, but the indirect effects will ripple throughout the gulf's economy, destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and, ultimately, the entire nation's economy.