By Donald Zuhn —

Last month, companion bills
were introduced in the House and Senate that would require Federal agencies to develop
public access policies relating to research conducted by employees of the
agency or using funds administered by the agency.  The Fair Access to Science and Technology
Research Act of 2013 ("FASTR") was introduced in the House as H.R. 708 by
Rep. Michael Doyle (D-PA), and in the Senate as S. 350
by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

The legislation begins by listing the following findings of Congress:

(1) the Federal Government funds basic and
applied research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries that
result from the research, if shared and effectively disseminated, will advance
science and improve the lives and welfare of people of the United States and
around the world;

(2) the Internet makes it
possible for this information to be promptly available to every scientist,
physician, educator, and citizen at home, in school, or in a library; and

(3) the United States has a
substantial interest in maximizing the impact and utility of the research it
funds by enabling a wide range of reuses of the peer-reviewed literature that
reports the results of such research, including by enabling computational
analysis by state-of-the-art technologies.

In view of these findings,
the legislation would require Federal agencies with research expenditures of
more than $100,000,000 "to develop a Federal research public access policy
that is consistent with and advances the purposes of the Federal agency"
within one year of the Act's enactment.  Public
access policies developed pursuant to the Act would have to provide for the
submission to the Federal agency of manuscripts accepted for publication in
peer-reviewed journals that result from research that has been supported by
Federal funding.  Submitted manuscripts
would then be made available online to the public no later than six months
after publication.

Under the Act, the public
access policies would apply to researchers employed by the Federal agency whose
works remain in the public domain and researchers funded by the Federal agency.  The Act, however, would exclude the following
from the public access policies developed under the legislation (emphasis
added):

(1) research progress reports presented at
professional meetings or conferences;

(2) laboratory notes,
preliminary data analyses, notes of the author, phone logs, or other
information used to produce final manuscripts;

(3) classified research,
research resulting in works that generate revenue or royalties for authors
(such as books) or patentable
discoveries, to the extent necessary to protect a copyright or patent; or

(4) authors who do not
submit their work to a journal or works that are rejected by journals.

The Act also indicates that
each Federal agency required to develop a public access policy would have to
submit a report on the policy to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs of the Senate; Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the
House of Representatives; Committee on Science and Technology of the House of
Representatives; Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the
Senate; Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate; and any
other committee of Congress of appropriate jurisdiction.

The House bill, which was
co-sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS), was
referred to the to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and
the Senate bill, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), was referred
to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

In a press release
issued by his office, Rep. Doyle stated that the legislation would "give
the American people greater access to the important scientific research results
they’ve paid for," adding that "[s]upporting greater collaboration
among researchers in the sciences will accelerate scientific innovation and
discovery, while giving the public a greater return on their scientific
investment."  He also indicated that
"taxpayers should not be required to pay twice for federally-funded
research."  According to the press
release, FASTR builds on the successful implementation by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) of a public access policy in 2008.