Two major American universities are in the news, thanks to the spadework of a number of small, independent news and research organizations.
Newly unearthed documents reveal that the oil and petrochemical industries spent millions of dollars to influence research at Louisiana State University (LSU), a school that has outsized influence over how the public perceives the oil industry’s activities in the Gulf of Mexico, where more than 90 percent of the nation’s offshore oil and gas is produced.
According to a joint investigation by Floodlight, Louisiana Illuminator, and the WWNO and WRKF public radio stations, LSU researchers received at least $44 million between 2010 and 2020 from ExxonMobil, Shell and other oil and petrochemical companies to provide research on plastics recycling, carbon capture and other industry-related issues and suppress any mention of climate change or Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.”
The investigation was assisted by Data for Progress, a nonprofit think tank that published a report in 2023 documenting how much researchers at more than two dozen universities, including Berkeley, Brown, Harvard, MIT and Stanford, received from six oil companies between 2010 and 2020. Now LSU can be added to the Data for Progress list.
Not only do LSU researchers take fossil fuel industry money, the university also gives companies—if they pay $1.25 million each—the right to decide what research the university’s Institute for Energy Innovation pursues, according to an April 2024 exposéby The Lens, a New Orleans-based publication. The institute, established with a $25-million grant from Shell in 2022, also will give fossil fuel companies a seat on its board for a $5-million fee.
When it comes to science for sale, LSU is not the only school making news. An emeritus University of Louisville professor’s research, funded by BP and ExxonMobil, is being used by the companies to reject medical claims by workers sickened by oil and chemical dispersants when cleaning up the 2010 BP oil spill, according to a storypublished last week by Drilled. Microbiologist Ronald Atlas allowed the two companies to review and edit his work, which supports the companies’ contention that the toxicity of the oil from both the BP spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez aaccident in Alaska has declined and the two ecosystems could recover.
Universities have been selling science for decades
The fossil fuel industry funds academic research as a key part of its decades-long campaign to confuse the public about the reality and seriousness of climate change. Some trace the campaign back to a 1998 industry memo outlining a multimillion-dollar plan to promote scientific uncertainty by funding seemingly independent research. “Victory will be achieved,” the memo stated, “when average citizens understand uncertainties in climate science.”
The coalition that drafted the memo included Chevron, Exxon (which merged with Mobil the following year), and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest trade association.
The campaign has continued unabated since. Last year, the Senate Budget Committee released a damning report detailing oil industry efforts to spread climate disinformation by funding, among other things, “free market” think tanks and academic research. The committee’s report included a revealing memo written by a BP executive. “Our policy programs at Harvard and Tufts,” the executive wrote, “provide BP access to unparalleled expertise at the forefront of research in the areas of climate change science, technology, and policy.”
Industry-funded research has had its desired effect, according to a study published last September in the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. “We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry,” the study concluded, “and that universities’ lack of transparency about their partnerships with this industry poses a challenge to empirical research.” And now with the Trump administration threatening to cut federal research dollars, universities could become even more dependent on corporate funding, which comes with strings attached.
Meanwhile, the lawyers representing workers and residents harmed by the BP spill are battling a phalanx of oil industry lawyers, consultants and scientists using tried-and-true tobacco industry tactics to deflect blame and delay liability. After years of seeking compensation, many of the workers suffering from chronic health problems have received little or no financial assistance from the company.
First published on Substack’s The Money Trail March 25, 2025.