Louisiana governor seals oil spill records

For more than two months, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has made it clear that he considers the response of the federal government and BP to the gulf oil leak a failure on many fronts. But elected officials in Louisiana and members of the public seeking details on how Mr. Jindal and his administration fared in their own response to the disaster are out of luck: late last week the governor vetoed an amendment to a state bill that would have made public all records from his office related to the oil spill. The measure was proposed by Senator Robert Adley, a Republican, and easily passed the Democrat-controlled Legislature. He told the Associated Press that the veto was a "black eye" on the state. "This governor has opposed transparency for the three years he's been in office," he said. In his veto letter, the governor asserted that opening the records could give BP and other companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon blowout an advantage in future litigation over damages to the state.