"Egregious, willful safety violations"

"...there is evidence BP has one of the worst safety track records of any major oil company operating in the United States...

In the last five years, investigators found, BP has admitted to breaking U.S. environmental and safety laws and committing outright fraud. BP paid $373 million in fines to avoid prosecution...

According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the "egregious, willful" violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

The violations are determined when an employer demonstrated either an "intentional disregard for the requirements of the [law], or showed plain indifference to employee safety and health."

OSHA statistics show BP ran up 760 "egregious, willful" safety violations, while Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had eight, Citgo had two and Exxon had one comparable citation...

BP's infractions were more than environmental. The Justice Department required the company to pay approximately $353 million as part of an agreement to defer prosecution on charges that the company conspired to manipulate the propane gas market.

Investigators from the Justice Department found that some BP traders were stockpiling propane, which forced the market prices to skyrocket. After their incriminating conversations about controlling the market were caught on tape, three BP traders were indicted.

The alleged price gouging affected as many as 7 million propane customers who depended on propane to heat their homes and cost the consumers $53 million. But for a company that reported profits of $14 billion in 2009, the fines represent a small fraction of the cost of doing business.

The incidents above are not drilling related, but what strikes me is that these were not simple mistakes or accidents - these were "egregious, willful" violations.  I wonder if an individual could commit egregious, willful acts with indifference to public safety,  and be allowed to repeat those actions several hundred times. 

But a corporation can.  And the monetary fines, as noted, are meaningless.