Last December, the Obama administration held its first offshore auction since the BP spill, granting leases for more than 20 million acres of federal waters — bigger than West Virginia. The leases are worth $330 million to the federal government and have the potential to produce 400 million barrels of oil.

BP successfully bid for 11 of the 191 available drilling blocks. Environmentalists challenged the auction of exploration rights, so far unsuccessfully, which precedes applications and approvals for actual drilling permits.

By the Obama administration’s accounting, 61 drilling permits for wells in more than 500 feet of water were granted in the 12 months ending Feb. 27, only six fewer than were permitted in the same period in 2009 and 2010 before the BP explosion.

“The political discourse about energy has really changed over the last two years,” said Daniel Yergin, the oil historian and author of “The Quest,” a book about energy security. Despite the BP accident, he added, “there’s a new focus on how U.S. oil production should increase both onshore and offshore.”

If there has been any disagreement, it has been over how fast to expand the drilling.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the Obama administration had put in place significantly tougher offshore drilling requirements, but they have been resisted by Republicans in the House, who have passed legislation to hasten review of drilling plans and open new areas to development.

“The Republicans and the oil industry are maintaining the speed-over-safety mentality that led to the BP disaster in the first place,” said Mr. Markey, who has been critical of the Obama administration’s response to the spill and to what he called a dangerous overuse of chemical dispersants in the gulf. “We now understand the lessons, but Republicans have blocked all new safety laws,” he said. “Not one has been put on the books.”

Yet Republicans argue, loudly, that Mr. Obama is not doing nearly enough to expand drilling. The Republican majority in the House has passed legislation to speed lease sales on public lands while pressing to open the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — which have been largely politically untouchable since the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 — to extensive oil and gas development.