Here's an interesting bit that seems to have slipped through the cracks in all this economic panic.  It seems a rather important policy is under bipartisan attack.

The National Institutes of Health, which funds the majority of biomedical research in the US, has encouraged open access to the research it pays for, and Congress eventually mandated an open access policy as part of the NIH's funding. But, for the second year running, a group of Congressmen have introduced a bill that would overturn the effort.

I could go on for a bit about what an important policy this is.  But it seems so obvious - I'll just stick to some basics about the current action.

John Conyers (D-MI), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL) have introduced a bill called the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act"  ending the requirement for public access to results of government-funded research.  While this is targeted at the NIH policy, it is phrased to cover any work subject to government (taxpayer) funding.  Among other issues, there seems to be a turf war because the bill bypassed the Judiciary Committee and they view it as a copyright issue.

Peter Suber from Open Access News has this to say about the bill:

The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism.  It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency.

The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law.  The premise is false and cynical.  If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, publishers wouldn't have to back this bill to amend US copyright law.  Instead, they'd be in court where they'd already have a remedy.

Mr. Suber also provides links to an open letter from 46 law professors objecting to "serious misstatements relating to copyright law" in the publisher arguments against the NIH policy and another to an open letter from 33 US Nobel laureates in science defending the NIH policy against the Conyers bill.

They tried this last year and it didn't get out of the committee.  However, as Ars Technica points out, there are reasons to be a bit more concerned this year.

Unfortunately for open access fans, this year's bill seems to present a greater threat to the NIH's policy. For one, Congress is distracted by other issues, which might allow a minor amendment to a funding bill to slip through unnoticed. In addition, Zerhouni gave a strong defense of the open access policy on scientific grounds at last year's hearings; he's since stepped down and, with Tom Daschle withdrawing his nomination, it's not even clear when a new head of Health and Human Services will be named; until that position is filled, there won't be a new NIH chief named.

Ars Technica should be commended for keeping on top of this.  They also gave great coverage of the issue when it came up last year (this provides really good background on the policy and battle to date).  The Library Journal also weighs in on the topic with some good background about Conyer's apparent anger over turf issues.

If anyone lives in one of these sponsors' district - give 'em a shout.  Hell, give 'em a shout anyhow.