Baton Rouge (FNS)—Facing both a massive oil slick from a sunken offshore drilling platform and a second year of declining tourism revenues along the Louisiana Gulf Coast caused by high gas prices, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today introduced a new tourism promotion that he reports is going to “...make lemons into lemonade”.
Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the “All The Oil You Can Carry Festival” would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May.
According to Jindal, "Louisiana produces 30 percent to 40 percent of the nation's oil and gas off our coast. It is certainly good for our economy...It is also good for the nation...We're sending tens of billions of dollars overseas, often to countries who are not friendly to us...this is one of the reasons we've got such a large trade deficit...and today, we’re doing something about it."
Executive Director Talia told the assembled journalists that Louisiana Highway 90 will be closed at Fort Macomb for the weekend so that families can fan out across The Rigolets and gather their own free samples of BP oil.
