US Congress Considers Bills Requiring Federally Funded Researchers to Have Papers Publicly Accessible Within 6 Months. (February 11, 2012)

US House of Representatives Congressman Mike Doyle (Democrat, Pennsylvania) on Thursday introduced bipartisan legislation that directs federal agencies to encourage open public access to federally funded scientific research. In fact the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), has identical versions being introduced into both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

The provisions of the legislation are similar to that of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) 4-year-old policy whereby copies of NIH funded peer-reviewed papers must be posted on publicly accessible databases within 12 months of publication. The new bill bill would require release within 6 months.

Both the House and Senate bills have bipartisan sponsorship but as yet neither is scheduled for a committee hearing because additional cosponsors are still required*.

ScienceInsiders' Jocelyn Kaiser writes that: "Supporters of FRPAA include a business group called the Committee for Economic Development, which this week released a 50-page report finding that the NIH policy 'has substantially increased public access to research results with benefits ... that far outweigh the costs.'"

However, Ms Kaiser reports that this past northern Autumn President Obama's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) made available close to

"400 public comments that reportedly reflect the familiar wide split between supporters and opponents of such policies".

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*Currently The bill's sponsors in the Senate are senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Kay Hutchison (R-TX); the House sponsors include representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA), Kevin Yoder (R-KS) and Lacy Clay (D-MO).