Tactics divide agencies in Chevron probe Jaxon Van Derbeken Updated 11:09 pm, Saturday, March 9, 2013 A grand jury probe targeting Chevron in last year’s Richmond refinery fire has created a rift between the federal agency investigating the incident and environmental regulators seeking possible criminal charges against the oil giant, The Chronicle has learned. Grand jury proceedings normally are secret unless the panel hands down indictments. But the federal probe into whether Chevron violated laws as a result of the Aug. 6 blaze has come to light because the U.S. attorney in San Francisco and the Environmental Protection Agency want to compel the lead investigator for a federal fact-finding agency to testify – and the agency is resisting. Chevron already faces almost $1 million in potential civil penalties for allegedly violating state workplace safety rules as a result of the fire, which spewed toxic gas and smoke into the air around the plant and sent 15,000 people to hospitals seeking medical attention. Federal indictments could expose the company to millions of dollars more in penalties and even raise the possibility of prison time for company officials. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the lead fact-finding agency looking into the fire, is evaluating what went wrong. But its role is purely investigative – it cannot bring criminal charges. The agency has already said Chevron failed to follow its own standards when it decided not to replace a corroded pipe several months before the line sprang a leak and started the fire, but the board has not issued a final report. Fighting in court The Environmental Protection Agency, which can bring charges against Chevron, is demanding that the Chemical Safety Board’s lead investigator turn over notes, interview transcripts and any other documents he has gathered in his six-month probe to the recently convened grand jury. Last month, the investigator’s lawyer went before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco to fight the subpoena. The head of the safety board says compelling a fact-finding investigator to turn over his findings to a grand jury would have a chilling effect on the agency’s future probes. “Our technically and scientifically oriented investigative interviews do not lend themselves to the discovery of information relevant to criminal charges,” safety board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso wrote to the environmental agency’s acting director last month. “Most witnesses agree to appear voluntarily before (Chemical Safety Board) investigators, in the hope that accidents will be prevented and tragic deaths avoided,” Moure-Eraso wrote. “These witnesses do not participate with the thought that there will be a direct pipeline conveying their statements … into the hands of a grand jury for purposes of criminal enforcement or a criminal fishing expedition.” Richmond report Moure-Eraso warned that complying with the subpoena “may seriously delay” the planned March 20 release of the board’s interim report on the Richmond fire, and “may permanently impair our ability to collect additional witness interviews needed for the Chevron final report and for other future investigations.” Any hindrance, he said, would “very poorly serve the community in Richmond … which has every right to demand prompt answers about why the accident occurred at Chevron and what can be done to prevent anything similar from happening again.” Breyer has yet to rule on the request that he quash the subpoena for notes and testimony from the safety board’s lead investigator on the Chevron case, Dan Tillema. Neither Tillema nor his lawyer would comment for this story. The board itself, being a federal agency, was not represented in the court fight against another federal agency’s subpoena. Moure-Eraso would not comment on his Feb. 15 letter, which The Chronicle obtained from congressional sources who asked not to be identified. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tactics-divide-agencies-in-Chevron-probe-4342652.php#ixzz2N9dgTCPo