all in the game, yo, all in tha game

Oh, the games Corporate America plays.

Oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico will have to permanently plug nearly 3,500 temporarily abandoned wells and dismantle about 650 production platforms that are no longer used, the Obama administration announced Wednesday. 

This would sound completely reasonable to me, even if the Deepwater Horizon incident never happened. I'm actually a bit shocked that wells were allowed to go uncapped and rigs abandoned.

"This is not the time to go back and impose additional costs on industry," [American Petroleum Institute President Jack] Gerard told reporters. 

See,the game is: when there's a recession, well you can't impose any new regulations, because, well, we're in a recession! (And no, it doesn't matter if oil companies make record profits during said recession). But when there's not a recession, well, you can't have new regulations then, because you would threaten the economy.

So basically, no new regulations ever, and shame on you for even suggesting it, pinko.