After the explosion of one of its natural gas pipelines, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. ran a $10 million ad campaign featuring its CEO saying the company "lost its way" before the disaster.

In a California Public Utilities Commission hearing about whether the utility violated safety laws leading up to the explosion, a top official said the ads did not refer to safety.

"I don't believe we lost focus on safety," said Jane Yura, the company's vice president for gas operations standards and policies. "But I believe we lost focus in terms of keeping up with the changes in the industry and improving our practices and our processes. And we had been a little static as a result."

The September 2010 explosion and subsequent fire killed eight people and ruined 38 homes in San Bruno, Calif. The company could face more than $500 million in fines.

A blue-ribbon panel concluded the company was more concerned about profits than safety and called its corporate culture "dysfunctional" (Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 16). -- MM