BP Gives Universities $25 Million To Study Oil Spill

BP will give universities in Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana $25 million to study the effects and response of the oil spill, the Associated Press reports.

The grants are "the first in a $500 million commitment to study effects of the spill and response on environment and public health," according to a news release.

The studies will be provided with "baseline data" about oil and dispersant, the news release said.

The bulk of the money -- $10 million each -- will go to the the Northern Gulf Institute at Mississippi State University and the Florida Institute of Oceanography at the University of South Florida. Louisiana State University will receive the remainder.

What do you think of this move? Weigh in below.

Comments

[mediamarv]

09:39 PM on 06/17/2010

Chump change.

How about 1% of gross for next quarter. Even with the stock tanking, that would be worth hundreds of millions. Now we're talking support for education!!!!

[General Public]

05:27 AM on 06/17/2010

"Studies" funded by oil companies tend to have erroneous results and say whatever the oil companies want them to say. Oil companies pay plenty of pseudo-scientists to have "studies" to try to "debunk" global warming, rather than doing actual studies into safer methods for drilling or better ways to clean up oil spills. This is no different from Dick Cheney telling all the "intelligence" agencies to come up with "proof" that Iraq had WMDs to justify going to war in Iraq. In fact, Dick Cheney is an oil industry man himself!

[gakabani]

02:42 AM on 06/17/2010

BP is doing propaganda on campus!

[toxicbrainpoison]

12:30 AM on 06/17/2010

For only $25 million you too can buy off academia.

[bonkin]

11:58 PM on 06/16/2010

Once again BP are goddamn arrogant pricks. Why don't they use the money to stop the oil? Why don't they add back up emergency shutoff equipment to all their other rigs? Why don't they give the money to the "little people"? Why are they still in charge anyway? Why is the rapist managing the crime scene? Jesus H. Christ. The absurdity is astounding!

[lisakaz2]

11:58 PM on 06/16/2010

I'm sorry but this is PR imo. It gives them "plausible defense" when their clean up workers get sick from the fact that they won't allow them to wear respirators that they are given. Since they claim the desire to hire out of work fisherman, etc. to do the clean up, and already there have been complaints about their ability to pay claims, I frankly think they want these ppl to develop health problems and die prematurely, thus lessening the monetary payoffs. They will claim when all the health issues come up "we didn't know -- we paid for research because we didn't know."

How does supposedly "not knowing" the effects of inhaling or handling this toxic substance mean that they threaten to fire anyone who brings extra protection such as their own respirator? Add to that the under-training of those they hire (reduced under Bush to 4 hrs whereas expects think it should be significantly longer -- like 24 hrs), and the result is ppl doing dirty work under-informed about the hazards and ensuring their own safety, ripe to be sheep to use and discard.

Based on what I know of the asbestos health problems created by the Manville Corp (Johns Manville), this is clear to me.

[Factonfact]

11:07 PM on 06/16/2010

Would it surprise you to learn that these Gulf State universities already are deeply indebted to the oil industry as are the states in which they operate? In their pockets, so to speak.

And if they were not, don't you think they would have produced research on their own over the past 30 to 40 years that would have called attention to the follies of Big Oil?

I strongly suspect that any professor at any of the three universities who got even a little crossways with Big Oil would have been dismissed or sentenced to a basement office and only freshman level classes, if that.

C'mon.

[Mildmannered]

10:43 PM on 06/16/2010

BP should give each of the four top U.S. petroleum engineering programs $20M to research the best technologies for stopping deep water oil spills.

[Mildmannered]

09:00 PM on 06/16/2010

It is a good start.

[maxfax]

04:06 PM on 06/16/2010

LSU, in Louisiana where the most damage is taking place to the ecology and environment receives only $5Million compared to Florida and Mississippi? Why?

[Steamboater]

03:59 PM on 06/16/2010

Money to study the spill. It's just PR. That money should have gone immediatelyto the people financially at a loss on the gulf coast instead of letting them wait and wait for it.

[grn1]

03:46 PM on 06/16/2010

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BP will give universities in Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana $25 million to study the effects and response of the oil spill, the Associated Press reports.

The grants are "the first in a $500 million commitment to study effects of the spill and response on environment and public health," according to a news release.

Look at next 2 comments this is where the 500 million mentioned in this article is

[grn1]

03:42 PM on 06/16/2010

November 15, 2007
Berkeley's Pact With BP for Research Institute Gives Company Favorable Terms on Intellectual Property

By Goldie Blumenstyk

The University of California at Berkeley and its two academic partners have signed the much-anticipated and controversial contract with the energy giant BP for the new $500-million Energy Biosciences Institute. Some of the intellectual-property terms of the research sponsorship, which favor BP, appear to be unusual for a university-industry deal.

[grn1]

03:42 PM on 06/16/2010

UC Deal With Oil Giant Sells Out University's Values; Insults Regents and Public, Consumer Advocates Say;
New Details Emerge Granting BP More Power Over University Research

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."

[blood1]

02:18 PM on 06/16/2010

Sorry for the pun, but it does reak of PR and buyoff of those WITH money. Don't get me wrong, grants will be great for the Universities. But it is an After The Fact. One can't undo all the damage that has been done. Looking at the risk of the chemical dispersants...shouldn't that have been done BEFORE they decided to release milllions of gallons of the most toxic dispersant into the Gulf!

Then consider how this is such a small amount of $$$ to BP.

The most critical part of this is that ZERO of these funds have to be used to come up with a better way to CLEAN UP the dispersants and OIL - nahh, they still aren't interested in investing in anything that looks as if this type of disaster will ever occur again.