Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has told lawmakers his department will issue a new, more flexible deepwater oil drilling ban, confirming NBC News' report this morning that the administration wouldn't appeal a judge's ruling blocking the ban.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Salazar suggested that development wells on proven fields might be able to move forward, Reuters reports.

"It might be that there are demarcations that can be made based on reservoirs where we actually do know the pressures and the risks associated with that versus those reservoirs which are exploratory in nature," he says.