The Research Works Act: a comment

"Looking into the US from the other side of the Atlantic, Federal funding for scientific research can only be viewed through a green mist of envy. The contribution of these funds to global science is remarkable (just take a look at a list of Nobel Prize winners, and note how many institutional affiliations are in the US), and is a record of which US tax payers should be justly proud. This contribution is not paralleled by any other government. Furthermore, efforts by funding agencies to make the benefits of research as widely available as possible - including to those outside the US - are laudable. It seems to be a truism that maximizing access to the results of scientific endeavor is in the best interests of further scientific progress, and so offers the best value to the taxpayer. So why would the representatives of the very same taxpayer seek to restrict access to this research, and by the same measure subsidize the publishing industry with money diverted away from scientists? It defies belief to imagine that these Congressmen are arguing for their constituents to pay exorbitant prices simply to read articles that they themselves have paid for with their tax dollars. So what is the defense? Supporters of RWA pitch it as a battle for the free market; in the words of the Association of American Publishers, its motivation is the 'freedom from regulatory interference for [the] private sector'. Of course, this is quite the opposite of what RWA actually represents, which is additional government regulation....In fact, market forces scare traditional publishing models, because left to their own devices they will arrive at the most efficient use of capital, which is undoubtedly, for the funding agencies, open access....Given that Federal funding ultimately pays for both access to publications and publishing costs, the best value option is an open access model....To prevent Federal agencies from pursuing what is therefore a no-brainer option, RWA is designed to skew the market....No freely operating market would tolerate those paying for the product (the taxpayers) being barred from access to its benefits...."