The Galveston County Daily News

TEXAS CITY — BP Products North America filed documents in federal court Tuesday saying its punishment for the fatal explosions of 2005, which killed 15 people and injured 170, is sufficiently “harsh” and shouldn’t be reconsidered.

The company said that, despite last week’s death at the refinery — the third since 2005 and one it dubbed as “a powerful reminder that there is more to do” — it has gone to great lengths to improve safety.

Victims and their family members have said the $50 million criminal fine agreed upon by the government and BP is too lenient and won’t ensure adequate safety measures will be taken by the company in the future.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal is expected to decide on the plea agreement by Feb. 4.

‘Extraordinary Outcome’

The company said it has more than doubled the refinery’s staff responsible for safety and environmental issues and almost tripled the staff in the process safety management group, while spending more than $1 billion on repairs and upgrades since 2005.

It said the felony criminal prosecution of a company is itself an “extraordinary outcome to a workplace accident, even an accident that results in multiple fatalities.”

A search of records from more than 3,000 fatal workplace accidents in the United States since 1998 revealed that, of those involving three or more fatalities, only four resulted in criminal prosecution against the company where the fatality occurred, BP said.

The $50 million fine — part of the first-ever felony criminal prosecution under the Clean Air Act — “far exceeds the statutory maximum fine of $500,000,” the court filing asserts.

Victims’ attorney David Perry of Corpus Christi has called the fine “shockingly lenient” and said BP made profits of at least $1 billion while operating the Texas City refinery under unsafe conditions that were illegal.

“The federal statutes indicate that where somebody makes a large amount of money out of criminal activity, the fine should be as big as the profit that was made,” Perry said.

In its Tuesday filing, the company said it’s a “false notion” that the profits from the entire refinery are the gain from violations at the isomerization unit, where the 2005 explosions occurred. The notion, it said, is refuted by the fact that the refinery continued to operate without that unit.

Perry had also argued that BP’s plea agreement granted it sweeping immunity from prosecution for future crimes. BP said the immunity is only from prosecution related to the criminal investigation arising from 2005.

Corporate Culture

Perry has argued that before the court accepts any plea agreement, a presentencing investigation should include information about the other criminal cases against other BP affiliates. He has tried to establish that the Texas City refinery’s London-based parent company, BP PLC, has a lack of emphasis on safety throughout its corporate culture.

The October plea announcement came with other agreements by BP to pay criminal fines and restitution totaling $373 million.

Those penalties stemmed from a spill of 201,000 gallons of crude oil onto the Alaskan tundra in 2006, and market manipulation to artificially inflate the price of propane.

BP Products has argued the other criminal cases are, by law, irrelevant to the Texas City plea agreement.

On Oct. 25, the government announced that BP agreed to pay the $50 million in fines and plead guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act to settle the criminal case against the company. Charges are still possible against individuals within BP.

U.S. Attorney Donald DeGabrielle has said he disagrees with Perry’s objections to the plea agreement. When he announced the plea deal in October, DeGabrielle said the $50 million fine was limited by mathematical formulas and was the maximum amount prosecutors could prove BP should pay.

Any fine would not be paid to the victims and their families, but would instead be deposited in the U.S. treasury.

BP has exhausted $1.6 billion it set aside to compensate victims in thousands of civil lawsuits.

BP reported an adjusted net profit of $22 billion in 2006, or about $60 million per day.