"Concrete is precisely how you abandon a well. That is done, to permanently and to safely close the well.
No conspiracy here. It is the normal and correct method, not an "environmental nazi" imposed method."
I was in favor of keeping these wells available in case oil got real scarce. When prices were at rock-bottom, even the folks who pumped the wells themselves couldn't make money. Now that prices have peaked, those folks would probably love to start pumping again- except they were forced to plug rather than cap their wells. Not enough oil there to be worth redrilling at today's costs, so those fields are lost. I imagine it's the same in every state.
No, no "conspiracy." As my Granddad used to say, "There's no conspiracy- those folks are just flat out doin' this stuff. They're not smart enough to have a plan behind it."
I remember as a small boy my Granddad teaching me to recite "Boiled rats and chicken fat are good enough for Democrats." He worked for every penny he ever had, never took a cent in welfare no matter how tight things got (even in the Depression) and was a staunch Republican until his death at age 99.
A little concrete is nothing to drill through. Shoot, wells are plugged and sidetracked all the time.