Oil Watchdog

Santa Monica, CA — The $500 million deal with BP signed today by
University of California officials to create the Energy Biosciences
Institute (EBI) at UC Berkeley compromises the university’s commitment
to public education by allowing secret corporate research on campus and
giving the oil giant the right to block any proposed EBI action, the
Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said.

The contract was ratified by the Office of UC President Robert
C. Dynes without being submitted to the Regents for approval or for
public comment. In a clear snub to the Regents and the public,
announcement of the controversial deal, which includes the University
of Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as partners with
Berkeley, came as the Regents were holding a regular meeting in Los
Angeles.

"University of California bureaucrats are transforming the
nation’s premier research university into Big Oil U’s UC-BP campus
without adequate public discussion," said John M. Simpson, FTCR
consumer advocate. "It is shameful. The Regents should have reviewed
this. The public who are the shareholders of the UC system should have
been able to comment."

With the announcement from UC Berkeley came the release of the
114-page agreement with the oil giant. A key element of the deal is
that BP will conduct secret research at the EBI. Berkeley and the
partners will have absolutely no control over the BP efforts.
Approximately $35 million a year will go toward what the university
describes as "open academic research." Another $15 million a year will
go to the BP efforts housed adjacent the academic laboratories, but
protected by "the use of keycard or other electronic access and
monitoring system."

"BP researchers will be able to suck up the best of what
Berkeley’s scientists have to offer, retreat behind locked, guarded
doors and pursue their corporate agenda with out giving anything back,"
said Simpson. "Academic research is based on an exchange of ideas and
information. This is a one-way street benefiting only BP."

Another troubling aspect of the deal, hammered out behind
closed doors over the last 10 months, is the EBI’s Governance
Committee, FTCR said. It gives BP more control of the EBI and research
than envisioned in the original proposal. In that document the
committee was made up of three academic representatives and two BP
representatives.

In the signed contract, the committee is made up of four
representatives appointed by Berkeley and four by BP. All action must
be approved by a majority; in case of a tie — if the Berkeley
chancellor and BP representative can¿t reach an accord — the action is
rejected.

"BP can thwart any action they wish," said Simpson. "And given
the despicable record of BP, which killed 15 of its workers in Texas
and spilled oil all over Alaska because of unreasonable cost cutting,
why should we believe the oil giant would act in good faith? They have
demonstrated time and again that they act only in their own narrow
interest."

Apparently in reaction to concerns voiced by some faculty,
students and other opponents of the deal, that BP would use the
agreement to "greenwash" its deservedly sullied image by associating
with UC-Berkeley’s name, the contract contains a provision requiring
written approval before its name or trademarks are used in any
advertisements.

"After they’ve transformed Berkeley into Big Oil U, who’d want to be associated with that image anyway?" asked Simpson.

– 30 –

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is California’s
leading non-profit and non-partisan consumer watchdog group. For more
information visit us on the web at: www.ConsumerWatchdog.org and www.OilWatchdog.org.