President Barack Obama in late March announced plans to open wide swaths of coastal areas to offshore drilling to gain Republican support for an energy bill that would address climate change, but in the wake of the massive oil spill off the Gulf coast, those plans could be foiled.

The oil spill, which is set to cost BP nearly $3 billion in cleanup and potential lawsuits, is spilling 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico and endangering wildlife, bringing the tourism and commercial fishing industries to a virtual standstill in that area and causing many lawmakers to rethink their position on increased offshore drilling.

“As the White House looks down the line, it wants a climate change bill later this year,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said during an appearance on MSNBC. “[Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was insisting that there’s going to be offshore drilling. I think that’s dead on arrival.”

Under the Obama plan, large areas of the nation’s Atlantic coastline, the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico and large swaths of the northern Alaskan coastline would be opened to oil and natural gas drilling for the first time in three decades. The White House said last week that it would suspend those plans while the Interior Department completes an investigation into the cause of the explosion and the subsequent spill and leak.

The president acquiesced Republicans in an effort to gain bipartisan support for a broad energy bill that would recognize the dangers of climate change and increase U.S. production of solar, wind and nuclear power while at the same time reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

But, drilling advocates that loudly chanted “drill, baby, drill,” during the 2008 presidential campaign have been unusually quiet amid the crisis off the Gulf Coast. Some drilling advocates have publicly expressed doubts about increased oil exploration in the wake of the disaster.

“If this doesn’t give somebody pause, there’s something wrong,” Florida governor and independent U.S. senate candidate Charlie Crist said.

But passage of energy reform legislation could be even further complicated if the White House loses support among its allies, which appears to be happening.

“[P]lease remove the Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida Planning Areas from further consideration for oil and gas exploration and development.” a group of six Democratic senators representing coastal states wrote in a letter to the president. “The tragic accident last week involving the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico makes it abundantly clear that the costs and benefits of offshore drilling need to be reassessed.”

Even environmental groups, many of whom stayed quiet when the increased offshore drilling policy was announced, are holding their tongues no more.

“The oil industry spent 40 years building a story line that it knew what it was doing underwater and because it knew what it was doing we could allow it to turn our most sensitive coastline into oilfields,” Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club, told The Washington Post. “We’ve now been reminded once again that oil and water do not mix.”

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