Language in FIRST act puts United States at Severe Disadvantage Against International Competitors by Ranit Schmelzer.
From the press release:
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition (SPARC), an international alliance of nearly 800 academic and research libraries, today announced its opposition to Section 303 of H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology (FIRST) Act. This provision would impose significant barriers to the public’s ability to access the results of taxpayer-funded research.
Section 303 of the bill would undercut the ability of federal agencies to effectively implement the widely supported White House Directive on Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research and undermine the successful public access program pioneered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – recently expanded through the FY14 Omnibus Appropriations Act to include the Departments Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Adoption of Section 303 would be a step backward from existing federal policy in the directive, and put the U.S. at a severe disadvantage among our global competitors.
“This provision is not in the best interests of the taxpayers who fund scientific research, the scientists who use it to accelerate scientific progress, the teachers and students who rely on it for a high-quality education, and the thousands of U.S. businesses who depend on public access to stay competitive in the global marketplace,” said Heather Joseph, SPARC Executive Director. “We will continue to work with the many bipartisan members of the Congress who support open access to publicly funded research to improve the bill.”
…
[the parade of horribles follows]
SPARC‘s press release never quotes a word from H.R. 4186. Not one. Commentary but nary a part of its object.
I searched at Thomas (the Congressional information service at the Library of Congress), for H.R. 4186 and came up empty by bill number. Switching to the Congressional Record for Monday, March 10, 2014, I did find the bill being introduced and the setting of a hearing on it. The GPO as not (as of today) posted the text of H.R. 4186, but when it does, follow this link: H.R. 4186.
Even more importantly, SPARC doesn’t point out who is responsible for the objectionable section appearing in the bill. Bills don’t write themselves and as far as I know, Congress doesn’t have a random bill generator.
The bottom line is that someone, an identifiable someone, asked for longer embargo wording to be included. If the SPARC press release is accurate, the most likely someone’s asked are Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX 21st District) or Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN 8th District).
The Wikipedia page on the 8th Congressional District in Illinois needs to be updated but it also fails to mention that the 8th district is to the West and North-West of Chicago. You might want to check Bucshon‘s page at Wikipedia and links there to other resources.
Wikipedia on the 21st Congressional District of Texas, places it north of San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the United States. Lamar Smith‘s page at Wikipedia has some interested reading.
Odds are in and around Chicago and San Antonio there are people interested in longer embargo periods on federally funded research.
Those are at least some starting points for effective opposition to this legislation, assuming it was reported accurately by SPARC. Let’s drop the pose of disinterested legislators trying valiantly to serve the public good. Not impossible, just highly unlikely. Let’s argue about who is getting paid and for what benefits.
Or as Captain Ahab advises:
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event –in the living act, the undoubted deed –there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! [Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter XXXVI]
Legislation as a “pasteboard mask” is a useful image. There is not a contour, dimple, shade or expression that wasn’t bought and paid for by someone. You have to strike through the mask to discover who.
Are you game?
PS: Curious, where would you go next (data wise, I don’t have the energy to lurk in garages) in terms of searching for the buyers of longer embargoes in H.R. 4186?