Last week, controversy erupted over an alleged admission from BP PLC‘s U.S. general counsel that “gross negligence” was a possible cause of the Gulf oil spill.

The revelation came in a July 22 letter from Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to BP. The officials mentioned a conference call in which BP’s U.S. general counsel John (“Jack”) Lynch “acknowledged that gross negligence would be revealed as a cause of the explosion that led to the oil spill.”