Understand that the BP oil spill currently tarring the Gulf of Mexico doesn't just affect Louisiana but the entire country. A third of domestic seafood in the United States comes from Louisiana waters: oysters, crabs, shrimp, redfish, trout, crawfish and catfish are all caught and farmed there. It's the largest fishing industry in the lower 48 states (only Alaska is bigger), and it employs thousands of fishers along the Louisiana coast who supply Whole Foods, Sam's Clubs, Red Lobsters and other markets and restaurants around the country. 

More than half of the fishers affected by this spill are Vietnamese. Since the 1950s, thousands of Vietnamese families have settled in New Orleans, particularly East New Orleans, which is a historically African American middle-to-upper-class neighborhood. The Mary Queen of Vietnam Church is one of the leading community organizations in the region and often works with black religious and justice communities, notably the Micah Project and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, to protest toxic landfills.

The Obama administration will need to make a definitive decision about how the livelihoods of these communities will be protected.

Despite some 200,000 gallons of crude oil being spilled in the Gulf every day from the Deepwater Horizon incident, and damages estimated at between $5 billion and $15 billion, President Obama has clung to offshore drilling as an imperative for his energy policy. Less than a month ago, he announced that the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf would be open for oil-exploration leases after a moratorium on drilling expired in 2008. While the spill has caused the president to temporarily suspend lease approval, he has not backed down from the long-term vision for Gulf drilling.

But all of this flies in the face of promises Obama also made about coastal and wetland restoration. The president has committed almost a half-billion dollars to these efforts. But one major oil spill, like the one now, could cancel out any serious Gulf-protection efforts. That begs the question: Can Obama simultaneously pursue drilling off the Gulf Coast and restore it?

If security is the utmost concern, then the answer is no. Coastal restoration is certain to secure the Gulf -- and America -- not only by protecting near-coastal cities such as New Orleans from utter devastation but also a major portion of the country's seafood production, not to mention the necessary importing of goods and materials that keep the nation's economy afloat. Drilling inevitably leads to accidents, whether man-made (as seen today) or nature-made (as seen when hurricanes like Katrina and Gustav toppled oil rigs and wells, spilling toxic chemicals all over the New Orleans region).