Five years ago, the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and ever since, the Obama administration has been loath to encourage any development of the oil industry in the nation. But now, it appears this administration is moving forward with the expansion of oil drilling, albeit cautiously. At the beginning of the month, it approved exploratory drilling rights to Shell Oil Co. But this week, the Department of the Interior is reportedly going to hand down regulations dealing with the safety equipment designed to prevent a blowout. The New York Times reports, “The rule is expected to tighten safety requirements on blowout preventers, the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010, was caused in part when the buckling of a section of drill pipe led to the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer on a BP well called Macondo.” It’s more regulation — a government trying to build a better fail-safe. What could go wrong? More…