The Transocean Development Driller III, the rig responsible for drilling the main relief well at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil wellhead, is seen Saturday on the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana.

New Orleans ? Now that the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history has effectively been stopped, the White House is considering an early end to its moratorium on deepwater drilling.

But four months after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, regulators have only started to make good on promises to overhaul drilling. Tough measures are stalled in Congress. A $1 billion emergency response network proposed by the industry won’t be operational for another year.

And while doomsday scenarios from the BP spill, like oil washing up the East Coast, have not come to pass, there are no guarantees that drilling will be any safer once it does resume.

What’s changed is “not enough to make a big difference,” said Charles Perrow, a Yale professor who has studied the spill in the Gulf.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has halted deepwater drilling until Nov. 30, saying the BP spill demonstrated the industry wasn’t prepared for a massive underwater blowout. He’s ordered rigs to re-examine their equipment and safety procedures, and next month plans to order new safeguards for blowout preventers.

Before drillers can return to the deep water, however, Salazar said the industry should be able to show that it’s capable of responding to and containing future blowouts.

Some energy experts, engineering consultants and Gulf Coast leaders joined Big Oil to ask Salazar to change his mind. Drilling was safe before the BP spill, they said, and Gulf communities that depend on the industry were suffering unfairly.

That argument appears to have gained traction, even among people most affected by the spill, now that BP is close to plugging the well for good.

Billy Nungesser, president of hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, La., said he’s seen attitudes change in his community now that the deepsea disaster is easing. Even though oil has been washing ashore for months and he’s fought constantly with BP and the government over their response, Nungesser thinks the ban should be lifted. Offshore drilling means jobs.

According to the most recent state data, the oil and gas industry supports more than 320,000 jobs in Louisiana and generates more than $12.7 billion in household earnings.

George Hirasaki, a Rice University engineering professor who was involved in the oil containment effort in the Bay Marchand field off Louisiana after a rig burned in the early 1970s, agrees.

“I think what is needed is improved standards and procedures, and not just restrictions on drilling,” Hirasaki said.

As Salazar continues to weigh the evidence, others close to President Obama are questioning the ban.

William K. Reilly, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who co-chairs the president’s commission investigating the oil spill, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he doesn’t understand why rigs that have passed inspections can’t resume drilling even while the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management conducts a broader review of safety offshore.

The group also asked the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center to look into the “wisdom of using a moratorium” for preventing spills in the aftermath of the BP disaster, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the AP.

The moratorium bans exploratory drilling but not production. At an estimated 1.66 million barrels of per day, Gulf oil production accounts for about 30 percent of domestic output. However, the government estimates 2011 production at just 1.54 million barrels per day — equal to 2009 levels — in part because no new wells are currently being drilled.

By contract, the U.S. is expected to import 9.11 million barrels per day this year. Opponents say the moratorium will only boost the need for foreign oil, but the government currently forecasts a drop in imports next year because of increased production onshore in the U.S.