UC Renews Pacts With Energy, Weapons Labs : Research: The regents vote 16 to 1 for five-year agreements with Berkeley facility and nuclear arms centers in Los Alamos and Livermore. They also approve a $605 increase in student fees.

The University of California on Friday renewed its federal contracts to manage three energy and nuclear weapons laboratories as the research centers seek new missions in the post-Cold War era.

Despite passionate objections by environmentalists and peace activists, the UC Board of Regents voted 16 to 1 for the new five-year contracts to run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and, in Northern California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The action continues ties between UC and the laboratories dating to the nuclear age’s dawn in the 1940s.

The sole no vote was cast by Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, an ex-officio regent who wanted a commitment that the Livermore and Los Alamos labs would shift to more civilian-oriented research. (Lawrence Berkeley does no weapons work.) McCarthy, one of the few Democrats among the regents, also suggested awaiting directions from the incoming Clinton Administration.

A stumbling block in the contract renewals was UC’s fear of increased liabilities for millions of dollars in damages from possible toxic spills or nuclear accidents. Under the agreements, UC will remain vulnerable in some cases, but its management fees from the U.S. Department of Energy will increase from $13 million a year to about $30 million a year for the next five years. UC officials said they will keep a $15-million reserve fund for such mishaps.

“What was in the past a civic responsibility is now a great opportunity for major benefit to the university,” said UC President Jack W. Peltason, referring to the extra funds and to what he said are new opportunities for intellectual exchange between the labs and UC’s nine campuses.

Faculty critics long have complained that the labs’ secret research is at odds with academic freedom. In 1990, before negotiations for the new contracts began, faculty senates on all UC campuses voted to urge the regents to drop the labs. At the time, there was much debate over whether Livermore officials had exaggerated technical progress on the “Star Wars” defense projects and improperly lobbied Congress on nuclear testing treaties.

Peltason said the contracts provide for more academic freedom at the facilities as well as for more forceful management by UC officials, including a new oversight advisory panel of professors and experts. With combined annual budgets of $2.46 billion and 17,600 employees, the three labs present very complicated and politically sensitive management questions.

Critics of the labs contend that the changes are cosmetic. The Livermore and Los Alamos centers still pose grave risks to nearby residents at a time when there is less need for nuclear weapons, those opponents told regents Friday.

“It is our health, our environment that is being degraded,” said Juan Montes, among a group of New Mexico activists who came to the regents meeting at UC San Francisco. “Let’s put those scientific minds, those geniuses, to work cleaning up the mess they made.”

During questioning by McCarthy, Livermore lab director John H. Nuckolls reported that about 40% of his center’s research was related to nuclear weapons and 20% to other defense matters. If there is no world crisis, less than half of the lab’s funds will be devoted to arms work in a few years, Nuckolls said.

In other business, the regents voted 14 to 3 to raise undergraduate student fees by $605 for the 1993-94 school year. That 20% hike will bring basic costs for undergraduate Californians to about $3,650 next year, not including room, board and books. McCarthy, Jeremiah F. Hallisey and student Regent Alex Wong cast the only votes against the increase.

At a news conference after the meeting, Peltason again warned fees are likely to go higher before next September because of the gloomy outlook for state revenues.

Also, as anticipated, regents unanimously approved the next step in planning for a 10th UC campus by authorizing environmental impact studies on three sites in the San Joaquin Valley.