Kendall asked,

Didn't president George H.W. Bush sign an executive order forbidding offshore drilling?

Yes, but now he's reversed himself. Which doesn't do anything at all, because it would take Congress to actually authorize that offshore drilling, and he knows that the slim Democratic minority can't get it through by themselves, and it's a questionable proposition in any case. So he can puff himself up, that HE is doing something, and "the do-nothing Democratic Congress" won't go along with his beneficent royal will.

Dave Oesterreich