"California regulators have not been conducting the intensive workplace-safety inspections of Chevron's Richmond plant and the state's 14 other oil refineries that federal standards call for, a Chronicle investigation shows."

"The limited checks that California inspectors have performed over the last decade have not led to a single fine collected from a major oil company, according to inspection records.

Those findings are backed up by a recently released federal audit of the state's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which is charged with enforcing state and federal workplace-safety rules at California refineries. It found that the California agency had conducted "very few, if any" comprehensive inspections of oil and chemical plants under its authority."

Jaxon Van Derbeken reports for the San Francisco Chronicle September 6, 2012. [2]