In New Mexico, oil companies agreed to work with regulators to find a solution to the state’s more than 70,000 unplugged wells. After months of negotiations, the industry turned against the bill it helped shape.

Last year, representatives of New Mexico’s oil industry met behind closed doors with the very groups with which they typically clash — state regulators and environmentalists — in search of an answer to the more than 70,000 wells sitting unplugged across the state. Many leak oil, brine and toxic or explosive gasses, and more than 1,700 have already been left to the public to clean up.

The situation is so dire that oil companies agreed to help try to find a solution.