Taxpayer Alliance supports senate bill broadening access to federa...( Washington DC May 2 2006 The Allian...)

Washington, DC May 2, 2006 The Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA) gives full support to the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006," introduced today by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). The bill requires federal agencies that fund over $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from their research publicly available via the Internet.

"The expanded access to research called for by this bill will help accelerate true innovation in science and medicine," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an ATA founding member). "The public's interest is clear; whether it is speeding a response to a potential flu pandemic, developing energy alternatives or putting the brakes on global warming, access to publicly funded science is more critical than ever. Joseph added, "The Alliance is encouraged by Congressional leaders who agree that we can do much more to leverage the taxpayers' return on federal investment in these essential areas."

ATA coalition members noted that the legislation's introduction coincides with the first anniversary of the implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy the first regulatory effort to open access to taxpayer-funded research on the Internet through the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central database.

ATA members include the Genetic Alliance, Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, and 67 other patient, academic, research, and publishing entities that support expanded public access to the results of federally funded research. "We support this bill," said Sharon Terry, director of Genetic Alliance, "because it provides a mechanism that will allow the results of our investment in science to be shared shared among collaborating scientists, physicians, students, and patients. There is no longer any excuse for our failure to
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Contact: Jennifer Heffelfinger
jennifer@arl.org
20-220-229-62296 x121
SPARC
2-May-2006

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