Ex-federal judge to monitor PG&E’s safety progress
A former federal judge has been chosen to monitor Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s efforts at safety improvements following the utility’s felony convictions for violating pipeline safety laws and obstructing the investigation of the lethal San Bruno pipeline explosion.
Mark Filip, who also served as a high-ranking U.S. Justice Department official, was jointly named by federal prosecutors and PG&E on Monday to oversee the company’s safety performance for up to five years, the period of PG&E’s court-ordered probation.
Filip, 50, has worked as a private lawyer, representing business clients and, in the mid-1990s, as a federal prosecutor in Chicago, working on cases of health care fraud and political and judicial corruption, according to a Justice Department profile.
In August, the company he will monitor, California’s largest public utility, was convicted by a jury in San Francisco of five charges of failing to properly inspect and repair its aging gas pipelines.
On a sixth felony count, jurors found that the company had interfered with the federal investigation of the San Bruno explosion by trying to conceal its practice of pumping gas at pressures up to 10 percent above legal limits.
The sentence included a $3 million fine, 10,000 hours of community service by PG&E employees and public statements in newspapers and television ads acknowledging the company’s guilt.