petRoLeuM And Beyond 365
That Gorton knew Baker wouldn’t have it any other way was the key
reason he signed up immediately when the Houston attorney called.
Other panelists included Skip Bowman, a retired admiral who had com-
manded the Navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered vessels without an accident;
Irv Rosenthal, a chemical industry safety expert; Paul Tebo, a widely re-
spected retired DuPont executive, and Glenn Erwin, an up-from-the
ranks petrochemical worker who headed his union’s safety program.
BP had paid a $21 million fine to settle 300 federal safety violations
and agreed to set aside $700 million for victims’ compensation. The
Baker panel’s mission was not to investigate the Texas City blast. Rather,
it would spend a year evaluating BP’s corporate safety culture, visiting
all five of the company’s U.S. refineries, including Cherry Point near
Bellingham.
Unwilling to come to Houston for an interview, British Petroleum’s
CEO, John Browne—that would be Lord Browne of Madingley to you—
flew the commissioners and an equal number of their support staff to Lon-
don first class and put them up in a posh hotel. “He spent a lot of money
on us,” Gorton says, “but it was probably one-ten-thousandth of one per-
cent of BP’s daily profits.”
The interview began with a 30-minute monologue that reeked of ar-
rogance. He was a small man, Gorton says, and he seemed to have a re-
fined chip on his shoulder. If Browne actually wanted nothing less than
the unvarnished truth you couldn’t tell it from the way he responded to
Erwin’s questions. A plain-spoken guy with an accent Gorton describes
as “from the deepest, hilliest part of the Ozarks,” Erwin fixed Browne with
a steely gaze. “I heard what you did,” he said. “I’d like you to tell me what
you felt when you learned that 15 people had been killed at one of your re-
fineries.” Browne proceeded to repeat practically everything he’d said in
his opening statement, with not one word about how he felt. Erwin and
Gorton exchanged incredulous glances. Sitting right behind them was
David Sterling, a lawyer from Baker’s firm. “A perfect Michael Dukakis
answer,” Sterling leaned forward to whisper. Gorton nearly burst out laugh-
ing. “That quip was perfection. Lord Browne left that meeting thinking
he’d snowed us. We stood there and said, ‘What an asshole!’”
the BAK eRpAneL and its staff interviewed more than 700 people, includ-
ing refinery managers, front-line workers and union shop stewards. Pub-
lished in 2007, its report focused on what the Department of Labor calls
process safety, as opposed to personal safety. Avoiding slips, falls and
forklift mishaps is different from preventing leaks, spills, metal fatigue,