Despite some debate over whether or not it's actually recovered from the Deep Water Horizon spill, the Gulf of Mexico will soon welcome BP to start drilling under its waters. "The British energy giant, responsible for the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history last year in the Gulf, won $27 million worth of leases to conduct new oil-and-gas exploration in the Gulf," National Journal's Olga Belogolova reports. "The awards from the Interior Department came in the first Gulf lease sale since the BP spill last year, with all winning bids bringing $337.6 million into government coffers." For what its worth, BP bid for a grand total of $110 million in contracts, and even though they won 11 out of 15 of those, it would appear that the government was a little stingy in what they actually gave them. That is, if you could call $27 million stingy.

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Adam Clark Estes