Since drilling wells is the only means of finding oil and natural gas, IDCs essentially amount to what any other industry would be able to deduct as a part of its cost of goods sold, a concept of accounting and tax law as old as the tax code itself.
It would be a perfect pairing with the simplifications in the tax code that would result from slashing all of the company-specific sections out of the tax code, which in and of themselves would save companies millions in tax accounting fees.