The lab that did the study is part of a team that received a $500MM award from BP. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_ebi.shtml
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_ebi.shtml
(I for one an extremely tired of this sort of attack, which among other things implies that government funded researchers are a pure as the driven snow. OK, I exaggerate, but it's been well demonstrated in many fields that deviating from the scientific establishment's orthodoxy results in your no longer being able to get government funding for your research.)
Science, like any other pursuit, is influenced by money and politics (see EPA under Bush). I don't think I'll ever believe anything BP says ever again, and I'm immediately skeptical of any organization who has a business or funding relationship with them.
I agree we shouldn't throw out good science because of the funding, but we should at least be aware of the source of funding.
"These latest findings may initially seem to be at odds with a study published last Thursday in Science by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution..."
"The Woods Hole team used an autonomous robot submarine and a mass spectrometer to detect the plume, but were forced to leave the area in late June...But that was before the well was capped in mid-July. Hazen said that within two weeks of the capping, the plume could not be detected"