On March 1st, a month after the announcement that UC Berkeley's proposal was accepted by BP, the grant proposal was finally released to the public on the Energy Biosciences Institute's new official webpage.

Here is our brief summary of the grant proposal -- it's shorter, and to the point. (newly revised, 23 March)

In July of 2004, UC Berkeley received the result of an external review of its recent deal with Novartis, whose primary recommendations include "avoid industry agreements that involve complete academic units or large groups of researchers."

In June of 2006, BP announced that it would fund an Energy Biosciences Institute. Sometime in September of 2006, some people at UC Berkeley got notice that they might be asked to submit proposals; on October 17th, they received the Request For Proposals from BP, and on November 17th, they submitted it (according to Steven Chu at the March 18th informational forum). During that time, Vice Chancellor for Research Beth Burnside sent an email to all department chairs asking if there was interest in contributing to the project. On February 1st, amidst much fanfare, it was announced that the UCB-LBNL-UIUC proposal was accepted. As people became aware of the scope and implications of the project, criticism soon emerged.

On February 26th, we held a teach-in about the BP deal, the first opportunity for any public feedback. On March 1st, we held a rally in front of California Hall expressing our opposition. Around then, the proposal for the EBI was obtained by the press, and we posted a summary of it, the first substantive details avaliable publicly. The university made the proposal, with names, appendices, and references to appendices removed, publicly available a few weeks later. (appendices added on April 5th, two days after this timeline) UC Berkeley's attempts at appearing to listen to critics have since been restricted to highly managed events (March 8th and 18th) and a website on which questions go unanswered.

General biofuel info:

Response to the EBI proposal by Professor Tad W. Patzek. (March 8, 2007)

Agrofuels a special issue of Seedling (July, 2007)

Biofuelwatch, a "campaign for regulation to ensure only sustainably-sourced biofuels can be sold in the EU."

An overview of the risks and problems with biofuels, at Grist (a large environmental news website).

Reports on biofuels from around the globe:

A May 8, 2007 report by the United Nations collaborations on energy, UN-Energy. It talks about many benefits of biofuels, but also warns that "unless new policies are enacted to protect threatened lands, secure socially acceptable land use, and steer bioenergy development in a sustainable direction overall, the environmental and social damage could in some cases outweigh the benefits." See also summaries in the press briefing or this article in Reuters.

Proceedings from "A civil society workshop to critically assess & respond to the `SA Biofuels Strategy'", held at Diakonia Centre, Durban, on March 5th, 2007. More resources at the African Centre for Biosafety.

Lots of material on economic, human rights, and environmental issues with biofuels from RALLT, the Network for a GE Free Latin America (Red Por Una America Latina Libre de Transgenicos). Primarily in Spanish, but includes useful English documents.

The Last Stand of the Orangutan. State of Emergency: Illegal Logging, Fire and Palm Oil in Indonesias National Parks. UNEP and UNESCO, February 2007. Predicts that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be gone by 2022, in large part due to planting of palm oil for biodiesel to sell in Europe, which will cause the extinction of the orangutan in the wild.

Articles about problems with biofuels:

Is Ethanol the Solution or the Problem?, Alternet (12 March 2007) Covers the current state of ethanol production in Brasil. "Our evaluation is that the government needs to combat hunger," says Mendoniça. "The government wants to become a factory to supply rich countries with cheap energy.

A Lethal Solution, published in the Guardian (27 March 2007). Current biofuel support in the UK are increasing carbon emissions -- demonstrates the sort of short-sighted thinking that's going into the sudden push for biofuels.

An article from The Guardian on how biofuels are already devastating the environments of developing countries.

An article from Reuters on turbulent biofuels and oil markets (March 6, 2007)

An article from the Washington Post on how the demand for ethanol is greatly increasing the price of tortillas in Mexico

Brazil's ethanol slaves: 200,000 migrant sugar cutters who prop up renewable energy boom, in the Guardian.

Background on GMOs:

A 10-year global review of the performance of genetically-modified crops by the European group Friends of the Earth. In short, farmers in developing countries are very negatively affected, the price of food for consumers rises, and major corporations profit. Importantly. it also concludes that absolutely none of the promises by corporations about the benefits of genetically-modified crops came true.

A summary of BP, its "greenwashing" advertising campaign, and its poor human rights and environmental record.

These articles investigate BP's conduct in Central Asia, the U.S., in the U.S. (Alaska), in the U.S. again, and in Colombia. Links with oil legislation in Iraq.

Oilwatchdog.org is keeping a close eye on BP and on the oil industry in general, and doing good work on the unfolding Berkeley situation.

The committee on Education and Labor, US House of Representatives, convened a committee on the BP-Texas City disaster. Here are the full hearings, with lots of info.

Black leaders announced a boycott of BP last year, including Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Resources on Protecting University Integrity:

Article on Stanford's Exxon-Mobil-funded $225 million Global Climate and Energy Project (March 11, 2007); links to Exxon-Stanford ads

See the Responsible Endowments Coalition here.

Concern about tobacco industry funding and academic freedom (SJ Mercury News, May 6, 2007)

University of California Academic Senate's Committee on Academic Freedom; see also the Official UC Statement; and a related forum

The UC Berkeley-commissioned external review of the Novartis deal, and an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the review.

The Olivieri Report on Academic Freedom at the University of Toronto (summary; pdf)

Articles on Funding of UC Research by the Tobacco Industry (Science; Daily Cal; Inside Higher Ed); Statement by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Condeming Tobacco Funding

American Association of University Professor's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom & Tenure (RIR)

Official Principles Regarding Rights to Future Research Results in University Agreements with External Parties for the University of California (1999)

1. Students and the public have almost no say in what would be the biggest corporate deal in UC history. The UC Berkeley administration is about to sign a $500 million agreement with the oil giant British Petroleum to establish a research center, without any substantial review or input by faculty or students, let alone the general public. This is the deal's "public review" period, but the UC administration and BP are the only groups allowed any input in the content of the deal. The governor will provide $40 million in taxpayer funds for the deal, without any review by elected representatives. On a public campus, students, faculty, and the public should have a democratic say in whether and how corporate money affects them.
   
   
2. The BP-Berkeley deal would invest significant amounts in research to increase energy production from oil and coal. Although the proposal is often said to be for "biofuels research", this only accounts for limited parts of the proposed research. Two other parts of the research are to create bacteria to pump more oil from existing wells, and to extract liquid oil from coal. No guarantee has been made which of the programs will receive the most funding. The state of California should not contribute taxpayer dollars, and UC Berkeley should not contribute its resources and expertise, to help energy companies pump more oil and use more coal.
   
   
3. Serious concerns exist about biofuel sustainability, and they need to be seriously addressed. Many scientists say that biofuels have caused terrible deforestation, pollution, and poverty around the world. Some say they take more energy to make than they actually produce. Even more say they may worsen climate change. Researchers at UC Berkeley have led the debate, sometimes on both sides, of these issues. The BP proposal underplays these concerns, bypassing the serious research of many accomplished scientists -- and has not attempted to incorporate these scientists into the creation of the research agenda. Research into biofuels should have these issues on the forefront of the agenda, not as a public-relations afterthought.
   
   
4. UC Berkeley's research belongs to the public, not to for-profit corporations. UC Berkeley's research should not create products for corporations to own. Our university is becoming increasingly commercial; the BP deal is reported to double the size of corporate funding. Corporations fund research to produce goods to sell for profit. Their close involvement in research can seriously undermine scientific inquiry for the public good. When this focus on profit grows in universities, it results in research that serves corporate interest over all else. Input from other researchers on this very campus about consequences of these products is ignored in the rush to make money. Profit should never be more important than dialogue and free exchange of ideas at UC Berkeley.
   
   
5. BP is not an environmentally responsible corporation, despite its advertising campaign. BP has a very troubling record in cutting corners on worker and environmental safety, which has resulted in oil spills and worker deaths. In 2002, Greenpeace awarded Lord Browne (CEO of BP) an Earth Day "Oscar" for Best Impression of an Environmentalist. "They are just not clean," Melanie Duchin of Greenpeace explained. "And no amount of rebranding can make them clean." BP earned over $260 billion in revenues in $22 billion in profit in 2005, but the "alternative energy" project it advertises so heavily will only invest an average $.8 billion per year for the next ten years. In a telling sign of BP's corporate responsibility, it officially counts natural gas, a climate change-causing fossil fuel, as an alternative fuel.
   
   
6. Biofuel crops are already causing environmental disaster. The Amazon rainforest is being cut down to make way for soy and sugarcane for use as biofuel. In Indonesia, ancient forests are being burned up to make room for oil-palm biofuel. All of this contributes greatly to global warming. Some of the biggest experts critical of the sustainability of biofuels work right here at Berkeley. Corn and soybeans, two of the most common biofuels crops, are often genetically modified organisms, which has already had terrible impacts on biodiversity in Latin America. The current generation of biofuels was promised to be a great step forward in sustainability, but this has clearly not come true. It is not safe to assume that future genetically-modified biofuels will be sustainable simply because those who stand to profit say so.
   
   
7. Corporate biofuels are affecting the world's food supply. Biofuel farming is currently using land and crops that would otherwise feed some of the least fortunate people in the developing world. According to the Washington Post, the US demand for biofuel corn has made prices for tortillas go up 400% in Mexico. Peasant farmers in Kenya recently protested biofuels, chanting, "No full tanks when there are still empty bellies!" Further increases in biofuel use could make this worse by making food unaffordable for millions of poor people around the world.
   
   
8. BP fights laws that hold corporations accountable. BP gave money for a ballot initiative that would decimate California's Unfair Business Competition Law, which has been used by environmental groups to sue oil companies for polluting California's drinking water with MTBE, forcing Big Oil to clean up its mess before anyone got hurt. When Safeway changed the date on old meat, consumer groups sued under this law to force the supermarket chain to properly restock its shelves. Should our university aid in profits that hurt the public?
   
   
9. BP stops at nothing to make money. BP was hit with the largest ever US safety fine for a 2005 Texas explosion that killed 15 and injured 170. BP is under a grand jury investigation for spilling 267,000 gallons in Prudhoe Bay, the largest ever spill on Alaska's North Slope region. NBC quotes a BP employee: "a dozen past and current BP employees came to him claiming they'd been told to cut back on a chemical put into their pipeline system to retard rust and corrosion, and to falsify records. A federal official confirms that many of these workers have also talked to the FBI."
   
   
10. BP violates human rights -- we must distance ourselves from such corporations instead of welcoming them to our campus. BP collaborates with and pays massive royalties to some of the world's most corrupt and repressive governments. It faces allegations of human rights abuses, and sparking regional conflict to build a gas pipeline in Central Asia. British Petroleum has been accused in the European Parliament of colluding in gross human rights violations by the Colombian army and of serious environmental destruction in the rainforest. UC traditionally divests from corporations with human rights violations, instead of signing $500 million deals with them. Taking money from this company will damage Berkeley's reputation and public trust in our science.

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