Federal Research Public Access Act

The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) is a proposal to require open public access to research funded by eleven U.S. federal government agencies. It was originally proposed by Senators John Cornyn and Joe Lieberman in 2006^[1] and then again in 2010, and then once more in 2012.^[2]

A later version of the bill, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act, was introduced in 2013, 2015 and 2017.^[3]

Provisions of bill

The FRPAA would require that those eleven agencies with research expenditures over $100 million, create online repositories of journal 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.^[4]

The agencies included in this bill are:^[5]

Legislative history

Congress	Short title	Bill number(s)	Date introduced	Sponsor(s)	# of cosponsors	Latest status
109th Congress	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006	S. 2695	May 2, 2006	John Cornyn (R-TX)	2	Died in committee
111th Congress	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009	H.R. 5037	April 15, 2010	Mike Doyle (D-PA)	16	Died in committee
	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010	H.R. 5253	May 6, 2010	Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)	0	Died in committee
	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009	S. 1373	June 25, 2009	Joe Lieberman (I-CT)	1	Died in committee
112th Congress	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012	H.R. 4004	February 9, 2012	Mike Doyle (D-PA)	34	Died in committee
112th Congress	Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012	S. 2096	February 9, 2012	John Cornyn (R-TX)	3	Died in committee

Reaction

Support

In addition to Senator John Cornyn and Senator Joe Lieberman, Representative Michael F. Doyle, along with Frederick Boucher, Michael Capuano, Jerry Costello, Bill Foster, Barney Frank, Gregg Harper, Paul Hodes, Tim Holden, Dennis Kucinich, Rick Larsen, Zoe Lofgren, Stephen Lynch, Dana Rohrabacher, Fortney Stark, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Henry Waxman have co-sponsored a similar bill in the House of Representatives (H.R. 5037^[6]).

As of July 19, 2010, 120 Higher Education Leaders support this bill.^[7]

On March 28, 2012, 52 Nobel Laureates signed an open letter to the US Congress expressing their support for this bill.^[8]

Opposition

The Association of American Publishers 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.^[9]

References

^ "Federal Research Public Access Act 2006". Archived from the original on 2012-01-11. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
^ Kaiser, Jocelyn (10 February 2012). "Lawmakers Reintroduce Public Access Bill". ScienceInsider. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
^ "S.1701 - Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2017". congress.gov. Retrieved June 10, 2023.
^ "Bill Text - 111th Congress - S. 1373 - Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009" (PDF).^{[permanent dead link]}
^ "FRPAA FAQ" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-11. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
^ "H.R. 5037".
^ "Higher Ed Leaders Support Public Access, 2009-2010". Archived from the original on 2011-10-12. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
^ "52 Nobel laureates endorse FRPAA". Archived from the original on 2012-05-02. Retrieved 2012-05-12.
^ "The Association of American Publishers". publishers.org. 5 March 2012. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2012.