Pacific Coast Conference charter members were the University of California (now University of California, Berkeley), the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University). Rivalries between the Pacific Coast Conference schools grew beyond athletics, with animosities around educational, financial and state rivalries. The tensions between the California and Northwest schools extended to Edwin Pauley, a regent of the University of California, disliking the member universities in the Pacific Northwest enough to advocate that the California institutions leave the Pacific Coast Conference to form a "California Conference." The PCC had a history of being very strict with
Washington State University Tri-Cities the state and a $2.06-million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. It is built on land donated by the Port of Benton in Richland. No other university in the Pacific Northwest offers such a curricula featuring bachelor and graduate degrees in viticulture and enology, a wine business management program, and a distance education program to earn professional certificates. The Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory (BSEL) opened May 2008 on the Washington State University (WSU) Tri-Cities campus in Richland, Washington. The $24 million, 57,000-square-foot research and teaching laboratory is a partnership between WSU and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)