No, I'm suggesting a gentleman's agreement.
It would be an embarrassment to any politician or political group
to put forth all the work necessary to relieve corporations or other
exploration and development entities of existing burdensome regulation,
then have those entities turn around and abuse their new freedom.
Political and public will would turn on them and chew them up.
Personally I think they have the good sense not to do it because of the
ill will it would cause. The support they receive from the informed public
and the political support they have today would not only evaporate it would
turn against them. Any big profits they could have expected will taxed away.
I don't see the necessity for such an arrangement: removing (hell, even just significantly reducing) regulatory hurdles that have to be surmounted now would make many, many,
many marginal fields now cost competitive, meaning the entry (and most often reentry) of many small producers in the market. The "big boys" wouldn't have the ability to push prices anywhere but down in the domestic market, because as soon as they try to raise them, all the fields that are now dormant because of regulatory overhead would only remain dormant in future if the larger suppliers keep prices down~otherwise they just create their own competition.
