Per the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's website, their honors (all seven of them) will next convene at the James A. McClure Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Boise, Idaho.

The Panel hasn't yet issued its Hearing Session Order for next month.  But Blawgletter expects the list will include the great many lawsuits over Deepwater Horizon.

So we wonder:  will the cases go to New Orleans?  Gulfport, Mississippi?  Mobile, Alabama?  Or Houston, Texas?

A Great Many Years Ago (in 1982), we wrote a Recent Development about a U.S.-Mexico treaty that resulted, too late, from the Ixtoc I blowout, which spewed as many as 30,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico (Bay of Campeche) back in 1979-80.  The gusher kept going for 10 months. 

We recall the tarballs that washed up on the shores of Galveston months and years later.

Which says nothing about where the litigation resulting from the Deepwater Horizon disaster ought to end up.  We'll follow with interest how the Panel chooses the pretrial venue for handling the biggest mess in the Gulf since Ixtoc I.