How the US election will affect open access
By Peter Suber (Open Access News)
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_11_05_fosblogarchive.html#116299406590652167
The big news in the US this morning is the mid-term election that
gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives. It may also
have given them the Senate, but we won't know until we've wandered
for a while in the desert of recounts and lawyers.
Here are the outcomes of four races that matter for open access.
1. Joe Lieberman was re-elected Senator from Connecticut. If you
remember, he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Ned Lamont
and decided to run as an Independent. Lieberman introduced the
CURES Act in December 2005 and co-sponsored FRPAA with John Cornyn
(R-TX) in May 2006, making him the sponsor or co-sponsor of the two
strongest OA bills ever introduced in Congress. Both CURES and FRPAA
would mandate OA to publicly-funded research.
2. Rick Santorum (R-PA) lost his Senate seat from Pennsylvania.
Santorum is notable for taking money from AccuWeather, the
weather-forecasting company, to sponsor legislation that would stop the
National Weather Service from providing open access to publicly-funded
weather data. Santorum was defeated by Bob Casey, Treasurer for the
State of Pennsylvania.
3. Mike DeWine (R-OH) lost his Senate seat from Ohio. DeWine could be
counted on to carry water for publishers, especially Elsevier, which
argued that national OA policies would cost jobs in the publishing
industry. Elsevier owns Ohio-based Lexis-Nexis. DeWine was defeated
by Sherrod Brown (D-OH), currently in Congress as a Representative from
Ohio's 13th District. Brown has been a friend of OA, and especially
the NIH public-access policy, from his position on the House Committee
on Energy and Commerce, the authorizing committee for the NIH, and his
position as ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Health.
4. Finally, Ernest Istook (R-OK) gave up his seat in the House to run
for governor of Oklahoma. He lost that race and is now, at least
temporarily, out of politics. Istook was OA's best friend on the
influential House Appropriations Committee and introduced the language
(July 2004) requiring the NIH to mandate OA to NIH-funded research.
We often forget that the House language --Istook's language-- demanded
a mandate even though the NIH eventually adopted a weaker policy.
That's three for four --a good day for OA. I'll add more about other
races as I learn more.
As I reported in July, the House Appropriations Bill for fiscal 2007
would compel the NIH to strengthen its public-access policy from
a request to a requirement. The fate of this bill will be decided
by the current House and Senate, not the new ones. The fiscal year
started on October 1, so action is past due and we can expect Congress
to get back to business as soon as the dust settles.
Peter Suber, Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_11_05_fosblogarchive.html#116299406590652167
Received on Wed Nov 08 2006 - 16:43:55 GMT