10. An important development in federal venue procedure authorizes the temporary transfer of related cases to one district when the cases involve common questions of fact and law and transfer would be for the convenience of the parties and witnesses and in the interests of justice. See 28 U.S.C. § 1407. A Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, composed of seven Court of Appeals and District Court judges appointed by the Chief Justice, makes decisions on whether or not cases should be transferred. The statute authorizes consolidation for pretrial purposes only and has been used very frequently for coordinated discovery. See 15 Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and381Procedure: Jurisdiction and Related Matters 3d § 3861. For a discussion of the use of Multidistrict Litigation in a series of lawsuits involving an environmental disaster, see Sherman, The BP Oil Spill Litigation and the Evolving Supervision of Multidistrict Judges, 30 Miss. College L. Rev. 237 (2011).