Federally Funded Research and Access to Information
Recently two pieces of legislation have been introduced in the U.S. Senate that would increase access to federally funded research.
"The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, introduced by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and cosponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), would require free online access within six months of publication for virtually all peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from federally funded research.
The American Center for CURES Act of 2005, introduced by Lieberman and cosponsored by Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), has a similar provision for research sponsored by agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)."
More information about the legislation is available from Thomas, the Library of Congress sponsored portal to legislative information http://thomas.loc.gov/. The full-text of an article with details about the Cornyn-Lieberman and CURES bills is available from the Association of College and Research Libraries website at: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2006/june06/fedfundedresearch.htm
Information from this posting is quoted from the ACRL C&RL News article June 2006.