UC Berkeley Releases Missing Section Of BP Proposal Under Pressure From Student Campaign

In response to a formal request from the student campaign Stop
BP-Berkeley, on April 5, 2007, the office of the UC Berkeley Vice
Chancellor for Research released the appendices to the proposal for the
$500 million research deal that is currently under negotiation with oil
giant BP Amoco PLC. Previously, the university had released an abridged
version of the proposal, hiding the fact that 115 pages of appendices had
been omitted.

The proposal for a new institute to study biofuels, oil extraction, and
other genetic engineering and energy technologies, was submitted to BP by
Berkeley last November. The text of the proposal was made public on a
university-run website on March 1 of this year, in response to public
outcry about the lack of transparency and accountability in the
development of the project, which University Chancellor Robert Birgeneau
has hailed as "reinventing the research university".

In a public forum hosted by a local chapter of the Sierra Club on March
22, College of Natural Resources Dean Paul Ludden claimed that BP deal
proponents had made "the entire proposal" public. When challenged, he
claimed that only the names had been removed. Careful comparison of the
published proposal with a paper copy of the proposal (which mentions but
does not include the appendices) revealed that along with the appendices,
all references to the missing appendices had also been removed from the
published document. Student activists submitted a formal Public Records
Act request asking for the missing appendices on March 28, and the
university added the appendices to its website on April 5.

The appendices to the proposal are now available on the website created by
the university to promote the deal, http://www.ebiweb.org. Individuals' names are
still absent from the main proposal text. However, they are listed at
length in the appendices, which include not only the resumes of proposed
researchers and staff, but also a long "inventory of expertise", which
appears to be simply a laundry list of faculty who might hypothetically be
potential resources for the BP project. Included on that list are at least
four UC Berkeley professors who are currently publicly opposed to the
deal. Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Tadeusz W. Patzek, for
example, an outspoken critic of the deal who is named in this appendix,
when informed he is included in the proposal said, "No, I'm not going to
be engaged with that under any circumstances. At least they could have
told me or asked me. My work on the proposal would not have been possible.
I would have been asking much larger questions", like whether biofuels can
ever be a sustainable energy source.

One appendix reprints an article from Inc. magazine naming Berkeley as
number one of "Five Universities You Can Do Business With". Critics say
Berkeley's zeal to "do business" has reached such an extreme scale with
this proposed deal that the deal, if signed, will destroy the independence
required of a public university. Other appendices include letters of
support from California Senator Dianne Feinstein and others, and texts of
past public-private agreements that may serve as models for the proposed
BP-Berkeley deal.

Despite administration claims to the contrary, the process by which this
deal is being struck has been consistently marred by a lack of official
transparency and willingness to answer to the concerns of students,
faculty, and citizens affected by the proposed research. Berkeley's
Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau recently wrote, in a letter to critics of
this process
(http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/UCBerkeleyEBILetter), "Our
proposal was developed in an open, not a secretive, way," and that the new
institute will "tackle one of the planet's greatest threats" "in a manner
entirely consistent with the values of a public university". The way the
university has selectively revealed the content of its proposal,
attempting to conceal the existence of 115 pages of the document, directly
contradicts these claims.

Stop BP-Berkeley is a UC Berkeley-based student campaign formed to oppose
the formation of the proposed joint BP-Berkeley research institute. This
campaign insists that UC Berkeley must commit itself to responsible,
accountable research in the interest of social justice and sustainability.
There are three major problems with the proposal: the undemocratic
process by which it has been struck; the social and environmental
consequences of research in biofuels, genetic modification, and fossil
fuel extraction; and the dangers of unchecked corporate privatization of
the public university. Stop BP-Berkeley is involved in making information
available about the BP-Berkeley proposal, calling demonstrations, and
hosting public forums about the proposal. It is sponsoring a petition
calling on the university not to sign the deal without major modifications
to the terms and the process. Upcoming events include a campus appearance
by Nigerian anti-oil-company activist Omoyele Sowore, picturesque street
theater, and several public forums. For more information see
http://stopBP-Berkeley.org.