Congress Considers Open Access Appropriations Language 

Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are again weighing in on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) 2022 proposed revision of U.S. open access policies. The fiscal year (FY) 2025 appropriations report language notes bipartisan concern that OSTP and some federal agencies appear to be advancing a new concept for a broad ‘federal purpose license’ for open access purposes that would limit authors’ rights to choose how their work is published and what others may do with it when accepting federal funds.  

Both House and Senate Appropriators agreed to similar language released this summer: “Right to License and Copyright Articles”. Researchers should have the right to choose how and where they publish or communicate their research, and should not be forced to disseminate their research in ways or under licenses that could harm its integrity or lead to its modification without their express consent. The Committee is concerned that in implementing OSTP’s August 2022 Memorandum to Executive Departments and Agencies titled, ‘‘Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to federally Funded Research’’ agencies may be violating this principle. OSTP is directed to clarify its guidance to agencies and instruct them not to limit grant recipients’ ability to copyright, freely license, or control their works. 

House Republicans have in the past tried to pause implementation of the new OSTP Open Access policy, noting concern that the Administration has not released a Congressionally requested financial analysis of how federal research agencies and authors would be impacted by new publishing mandates. The Administration has declined to identify any new resources that would be necessary to fulfill expanded Open Access mandates.  

While ASME offers a wide variety of publishing options, including Green and Gold Open Access, ASME and other scholarly publishers have raised concerns that under its current ‘zero cost’ plan, the OSTP’s efforts to make research results more widely available could end up limiting the best and most valued publishing assets to the wealthiest institutions, leaving under-resourced parts of our innovation ecosystem to languish.  

Congress is due to pass a short-term concurrent resolution before returning to full year FY 2025 appropriations after the November elections. Read the House and Senate Appropriations report language on federal funded research to learn more.