It's Now Up to UC Board of Regents to Examine the BP Deal in Detail

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By John M. Simpson
the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR)

Meeting in a special session, UC Berkeley’s faculty senate struggled with parliamentary procedures to reject resolutions that would have asked Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to delay signing a $500 million deal with oil giant BP to create an alternate energy research institute.

With the faculty's failure to stand up, the UC Board of Regents needs to prevent Cal Berkeley from becoming Big Oil U.'s next campus, UCBP.

An article by Richard Paddock in the Los Angeles Times lays out what's at stake. He writes:

"A $500-million deal between UC Berkeley and oil giant BP to establish a joint energy laboratory has prompted growing protests by students and faculty who fear the arrangement will compromise the university's integrity.

"Some critics charge that the privately negotiated pact will turn the campus into 'UCBP.' And they question aspects of the deal that would give the oil company unusual influence at the campus, including exclusive control over some of the institute's expected findings."

The faculty senate meeting highlighted a split on campus between many professors from the humanities who questioned the deal's terms and the secret way it was negotiated, and faculty from the sciences. Not surprisingly, the scientists are most likley to benefit directly from BP money and other corporate funding.

More attention was on the minutia of Roberts Rules of Order than on any substantive debate of the issues and it was clear the fix was in. It was obvious from the beginning that so-called “compromise resolutions” handed out on yellow sheets of paper as the hour-and-a-half session started would carry the day.

I attended the meeting in Boalt Hall after joining Prof. Ignacio Chapela at a news conference to speak out against the deal. He was among the professors who had called for the special session. We’re not the only people asking for a delay and a full examination of the implications of the proposed deal with BP.