One that works

More from Bob Bea yesterday at the BP trial:

But when Brock also tried to show that BP took the steps necessary to properly develop the well, including the use of a blowout preventer, Bea's answers didn't quite go as planned.

"A safety conscious operator would want to have in place a BOP?" Brock said. "That works," Bea said, referring to the failure of the preventer on the Macondo well to block off the flow of oil. Testimony on Monday focused on dead batteries and a failed solenoid on the preventer as reasons it didn't work properly.

"And that was approved by MMS?" Brock asked, referring to the federal Minerals Management Service, whose safety regulations are now implemented by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. The Macondo blowout preventer was approved by the MMS. "That works," Bea repeated.

This being New Orleans, there are several circumstances under which I can pick up a new brake tag regardless of whether or not any of the safety features on my vehicle are working properly. So I would have been approved by the regulating agency, technically, but if my brakes fail and I plow into a school knowing all of this... well that's probably "gross negligence."

"It's a classic failure of management and leadership in BP"

Robert Bea's testimony at the BP trial

"It's a classic failure of management and leadership in BP," said Bea, a former BP consultant who also investigated the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and New Orleans levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The London-based company has said its "Operating Management System" was designed to drive a rigorous and systematic approach to safety and risk management. Yet it was only implemented at one of the seven rigs the company owned or leased in the Gulf.

Bea said it was "tragic" and "egregious" that BP didn't apply its own safety program to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig before the Macondo well blowout triggered the explosion that killed 11 workers and spawned the massive spill. Transocean owned the rig; BP leased it.

Yeah yeah "tragic" "egregious" but was it "gross"?

One of the biggest questions facing U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is hearing the case without a jury, is whether BP acted with gross negligence.

Under the Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a minimum of $1,100 per barrel of spilled oil; the fines nearly quadruple to about $4,300 a barrel for companies found grossly negligent, meaning BP could be on the hook for nearly $18 billion.

The plaintiff's lawyers should coach every witness to use the word "gross" as often as possible.