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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Peevey/UCLA Coverage is Beginning to Look Like a Witch Hunt

The San Diego Union-Tribune has been covering the PUC/Peevey affair as it relates to UCLA. We have noted on this blog that although UCLA seems not to be handling the matter all that well, the root of the problem was at the PUC and with Mr. Peevey. Apparently, Peevey/PUC/Southern California Edison came to a UCLA research center with a proposal to give it $25 million to deal with green issues. The money seemed to be penance for Edison's costly San Onofre nuclear power plant screw-up and shutdown. The center came back with a proposal on how it would use the money. But the lead sentence in the Union-Tribune is:

Officials at the University of California, Los Angeles never planned to share $25 million of research grants that former utility regulator Michael Peevey helped secure from owners of the failed San Onofre nuclear power plant...

Full story at http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/may/05/ucla-peevey-25-million/

Why would UCLA be expected to "share" a research grant that was being offered to it? Why is such proposed non-sharing seen as doing something wrong? When universities receive donations or grants, they might conceivably use them in ways that involve other universities. But unless such sharing is a condition of the money, distributing it outside the university would not normally be expected. No one seems to be pointing out this fact so we will.

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