The U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has declared a fishery disaster involving Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal requested the declaration April 30, already very aware of the threat to the state’s commercial fishing industry.  The disaster declaration is a necessary step to making federal [...]

News media, especially photographers, are complaining that British Petroleum and other officials are blocking them from areas where the effects of the spill are visible. Just last week, a CBS television crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered Louisiana beach. Most recently, a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer was denied permission to [...]

According to BP documents, several days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon BP officials chose to use a type of casing for the oil well that the company knew was the riskier choice of two options. This decision was described in the document as the “best economic case” for British Petroleum. The concerns with [...]