The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) is a proposal to require open public access to research funded by eleven

U.S. federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fed ...

agencies. It was originally proposed by Senators

John Cornyn John Cornyn III ( ; born February 2, 1952) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Texas, a seat he has held since 2002. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the Senate majority whip for ...

and

Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...

in 2006 and then again in 2010, and then once more in 2012. A later version of the bill, the

Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) is a bill in the United States that would mandate earlier public release of taxpayer-funded research. The bill has been introduced in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and S ...

, was introduced in 2013 and 2015.

Provisions of bill

The FRPAA would require that those eleven agencies with research expenditures over $100 million, create online repositories of

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

articles of the research completed by that agency and make them publicly available. They must be maintained and preserved by the agency, or another repository that permits free and open access. It must be available to users without charge within six months after it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The agencies included in this bill are: * Department of Agriculture * Department of Commerce *

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

Department of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

* Department of Transportation * Environmental Protection Agency * National Aeronautics and Space Administration *

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

Legislative history

Reaction

Support

In addition to Senator

and Senator

, Representative Michael F. Doyle, along with Frederick Boucher, Michael Capuano,

Jerry Costello Jerry Francis Costello (born September 25, 1949) is an American politician and former U.S. Representative for . He previously represented and served in the US House from 1988 to 2013. He is a member of the Democratic Party and was the dean of I ...

, Bill Foster,

Barney Frank Barnett Frank (born March 31, 1940) is a former American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. A Democrat, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committ ...

Gregg Harper Gregory Livingston Harper (born June 1, 1956) is a former American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2009 to 2019. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes the wealthier portions of the state capital ...

Paul Hodes Paul William Hodes (born March 21, 1951) is an American lawyer, musician, and former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2007 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and was New Hampshire's first Jewish representative. Hodes was an u ...

Tim Holden Thomas Timothy Holden (born March 5, 1957) is an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. representative for from 1993 to 2013. Holden was the dean of the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation durin ...

, Dennis Kucinich,

Rick Larsen Richard Ray Larsen (born June 15, 1965) is an American politician and lobbyist serving as the United States representative for since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, Larsen is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House ...

Zoe Lofgren Susan Ellen "Zoe" Lofgren ( ; born December 21, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a U.S. representative from California. A member of the Democratic Party, Lofgren is in her 13th term in Congress, having been first elected in ...

, Stephen Lynch,

Dana Rohrabacher Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher (; born June 21, 1947) is a former American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019. A Republican, he represented for the last three terms of his House tenure. Rohrabacher ran for r ...

, Fortney Stark,

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Deborah Wasserman Schultz (née Wasserman; born September 27, 1966) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from , first elected to Congress in 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former chair of the Democrat ...

, and

Henry Waxman Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939) is an American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1975 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party. His district included much of the western part of the city of ...

have co-sponsored a similar bill in the House of Representatives (H.R. 5037). As of July 19, 2010, 120 Higher Education Leaders support this bill. On March 28, 2012, 52 Nobel Laureates signed an open letter to the US Congress expressing their support for this bill.

Opposition

The

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...

opposes the bill on behalf of 81 scholarly publishing organizations alleging that the bill forces the same deadline for disciplines in which that deadline is burdensome, limits the options of government-funded researchers, forces a change in publishers' business models, and will create a cost burden on federal agencies.

Provisions of bill

Legislative history

Reaction

Support

Opposition

See also

References

Further reading