In the 109th Congress, the Federal Research Public Access Act, S. 2695 was introduced to codify the requirement that publishers of scholarly journals provide to the federal government their peer reviewed articles based on federally funded research was introduced in the U.S. Senate. However, no action was taken on the bill before the 109th Congress adjourned.

Senate Bill 2695 would have required not-for-profit and commercial journals to surrender their peer reviewed articles to the federal government when the underlying research is funded with tax money. It amounted to an expropriation of intellectual property, without compensation, that would have undermined an entire industry and the peer review publishing it provides. To see the text of S. 2695 click here.

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The Problems With Senate Bill 2695

S. 2695 would have placed the independent peer-review process in jeopardy. While tax money may pay for certain scientific research, it does not pay for the peer-review publishing process – publishers do. By destroying a significant revenue stream for scholarly journals, this bill threatened the financial viability of the journals that conduct peer-reviews.

S. 2695 was tantamount to an unconstitutional taking of intellectual property by the federal government. It would have required journals to essentially give away their product to the federal government without compensation. This bill, if re-introduced, would result in the compulsory forfeiture of intellectual property by publishers, raising serious ‘due process’ questions.

S. 2695 overstepped the bounds of government. It is unnecessary for the federal government to intervene in the publishing business in such a manner and does so at the expense and detriment of private sector publishers.

S. 2695 would have given too much power to bureaucrats. It would have created an opportunity for bureaucrats to subvert the goal of public access by letting them take publishers’ own material and use it to duplicate and compete with not-for-profit and commercial publishers.

S. 2695 would have resulted in document repositories that are not necessarily sustainable. The ability of the federal government to maintain steady funding for repositories, like those proposed in S. 2695, is subject to budget economics and shifting political priorities. An example is the proposed 80% reduction in funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency libraries in the Fiscal Year 2007 budget.

S.2695 amounted to a form of censorship. Journals would have been required to give away some of their articles but not all of them, only those based on government funded research. This would result in a form of censorship based on an incomplete and possibly biased repository of information because the bill would apply to government funded research.

S. 2695 would have crippled the business prospects of peer-reviewed journals. The bill, if re-introduced, would require compulsory forfeiture of peer-reviewed articles six months after publishing, yet such articles achieve less than 30% of their lifetime value after six months, resulting in future losses of 70% or more for journals that conduct peer review.

S. 2695 would have placed an undue burden on publishers of society and other not-for-profit medical, scientific and scholarly journals. These journals also conduct and manage the review of submissions by other professionals. Forcing journals to give away their work would jeopardize their ability to continue funding serious peer review.

S. 2695 would have impeded medical and scientific innovation. The nature of peer-reviewed journals makes them attractive to the nation’s top research experts and institutions. By risking the future of the peer-review process, this bill, if re-introduced, would discourage future research efforts by America’s best and brightest research minds.

S. 2695 might as well have been called “The Advancement of Junk Science Act of 2006.” By threatening the viability and the very existence of peer-reviewed journals, S. 2695 risked the opening of the floodgates for non-peer reviewed junk science to enter the marketplace.

S. 2695 was unfair and inequitable, singling out a specific segment of activity. The federal government provides hundreds of millions of dollars in grants each year without forcing grantees to give away their work. Recipients of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts are not required to give away their art, nor are farmers receiving Department of Agricultural grants required to give away their crops.

S. 2695 was not necessary. Independent peer review has been the Gold Standard of separating pure science from junk science since Henry Oldenburg started the Royal Society of London’s Philosophical Transactions in the mid-1600s (1665, to be precise). Works published in medical, scientific and scholarly journals are already available at no cost to taxpayers through local libraries and universities, as well as through existing private-sector on-line databases.

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