In a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the new offshore oil and gas drilling moratorium (pdf) issued by the Obama administration earlier this week would hold up because it allowed for more flexibility and did not treat all drillers the same -- a central argument made by the oil industry in their suit challenging the legality of the moratorium.

Gibbs was asked why the Obama administration's second try at a moratorium on new deepwater oil and gas drilling will pass legal muster, even though it differed only slightly from the one struck down last month by a federal district court judge -- a decision that held up against an appeal from the federal government.

Again, this took into account what the judge had said. It took into -- it takes into account the varying circumstances of and the different types of technologies that are used for different blowout preventers in different depths of water in the Gulf. This was based on, again, their review of what the judge said and what we believe will survive a federal judge looking at it again.

If upheld, the moratorium announced by the Obama administration would have an immediate impact on 33 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico and would extend for six months.