The White House lifted its deepwater drilling moratorium today, but Mary Landrieu still won’t lift her hold on Jack Lew.

The Interior Department moved forward today with new offshore drilling rules without moving up the end of the moratorium.

The executive summary and the full investigation rely heavily on jargon, but they basically describe a systemic failure. However, BP cleverly sidesteps the question of well design, for which they have personal responsibility, and basically looks at the incidents on the Deepwater Horizon in a vacuum.

An oil rig in shallow water, about 80 miles from the Louisiana shore in Vermilion Bay, exploded today, in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The Republican co-chair of the oil spill commission wants an early end to the moratorium on deepwater drilling, citing the improved safeguards already put into place by the Interior Department.

BP makes their money from drilling for, and selling, oil, and so their continued viability in running that business affects whether they have the cash available to pay out the $20 escrow fund for compensation to those hit by the oil disaster. But the deal between BP and the government apparently makes that explicit, and in particular their Gulf of Mexico drilling operations; future drilling revenues are BP’s leverage to permit more exploration and drilling.

New data shows that support for offshore drilling has reached its lowest level ever in Rasmussen’s latest polling. Here’s how the GOP-friendly pollster** frames the latest data (emphasis mine):

With the deepwater oil leak apparently capped after three months of gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, support for both offshore oil drilling and drilling further out in deepwater remains largely unchanged. Most voters also remain concerned about the potential environmental impact of new drilling.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of U.S. Voters now believe offshore oil drilling should be allowed, while 26% oppose it. One-in-five voters (19%) are undecided.

That’s down from 60% last month. Since the oil rig explosion that caused the massive oil leak, support for offshore drilling has ranged from 56% to 64%.

Predictably, Rasmussen leaves most of the useful information out of their analysis. In their polling immediately prior to the rig explosion in the Gulf, 72% of likely voters supported offshore drilling. Even with Rasmussen’s skewed likely voter model, this represents a 16% shift in just 11 weeks. The current level of support among likely voters, 56%, is the lowest ever recorded by Rasmussen for this question. Moreover, support among Democrats for offshore drilling has dropped from 54% in early April to just 29% in the latest poll. Support among Republicans remains relatively flat, down just 4%. GOP support for offshore drilling, at 82%, is actually up 8% from its low point in late May.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones writes, “This is stunningly bad journalism… The Bloomberg results make for an exciting headline, but that’s about it. Correlation with reality is pretty close to zero.”

The beginning of this Bloomberg story is completely false:

Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill, even as they hold the company primarily responsible for the incident.

Almost three-fourths, or 73 percent, say a ban is unnecessary, calling the worst oil spill in U.S. history a “freak accident,” according to a Bloomberg National Poll.

Without looking at the poll’s toplines (PDF), you might not realize what is wrong with these two paragraphs. As it turns out, Bloomberg’s poll did not ask about President Obama’s temporary ban on deepwater drilling.

BP sucessfully installed their new, tighter cap on the Macondo well yesterday, and will now begin testing the valves and the other functions. The goal is to fully capture all of the leaking oil from the well, and officials believe they can achieve that goal. This would not stop the drilling of the relief wells, seen as key to permanently closing up the spill.