President Barack Obama set a new policy on Monday intended to improve coordination of uses of U.S. coastal waters ranging from recreation to commercial fishing to offshore drilling.

As his administration contends with the BP Plc oil spill, Obama was to sign an executive order creating a single National Ocean Council to make sense of the huge number of rules from different agencies on the use of U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes.

The plan, the final recommendation of an Ocean Policy Task Force that Obama established last year, does not set new rules for offshore drilling, commercial or recreational fishing or other uses of U.S. waters.