US House of Representatives' Science Committee Revisits Publication Open-Access Policies. (March 30, 2012)

ScienceInsider's Jocelyn Kaiser reports that a panel from the US House of Representatives took evidence from witnesses regarding whether the Federal Government should require publications which are based on federally funded research, to be made freely available after a reasonable time of embargo.

In fact since 2008 the "NIH has required its grantees to post their peer-reviewed manuscripts in a free online archive after an embargo of up to 12 months following a paper's publication in a journal."

In 2010 the House Science Committee looked into the question of whether or not the NIH approach should be extended but came to the conclusion that federal agencies should develop policies regarding public access thereby leaving it to the individual agencies to work out their approaches.

In yesterday's revisiting of the matter the committee's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight took submissions from representatives of the American Society of Plant Biologists and the American Institute of Physics who according to Ms Kaiser "warned of cancelled journal subscriptions if articles were freely available, even after a 12-month embargo".

On the other hand Elliott Maxwell, author of a recent report  for the Committee for Economic Development found the NIH policy is increasing access without harming publishers and in his opinion the NIH model would be a useful starting point for other federal agencies on which to base their policies.

As matters stand at the moment the US Congress is considering two bills -- one would dump the NIH's policy the other would have agencies follow the NIH model but reduce the embargo from 12 to 6 months. As to the viewpoint of the House Science Committee, Ms Kaiser reports it's fence sitting waiting to see "how the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) responds to a request in the 2010 COMPETES Act asking for a report on federal policies on public access. OSTP's report should be out in a few weeks, the committee says".