FASTR Introduced in House and Senate : Open Access Now

"There was great excitement late last week when news began circulating that the 'Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act' (FASTR) had been introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Mike Doyle (Pennsylvania 14th District), Kevin Yoder (Kansas 3rd District), and Zoe Lofgren (California 19th District) are the co-sponsors of the House Bill (opens as .pdf). Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the same bill to the Senate. The bi-partisan FASTR bill would require federal agencies with annual research budgets of $100 million or more to provide open access to articles from agency-funded research no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. InfoDocket provided a quick round-up of links to statements about FASTR, including important responses from Peter Suber (outlining the differences between FASTR and FRPAA) and the Association of American Publishers. Additional responses published since InfoDocket’s overview include those from PLOS, The Scholarly Kitchen, and Nature News Blog. Additionally, Peter Suber has created the resource Notes on the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act. This important legislation needs action from you! The Alliance for Taxpayer Access page about FASTR provides an Act Now section which outlines simple (and FAST) ways for you to contact your legislators. We hope you will let your voice be heard."