There is a significant chance of a legislative advance towards enforcement of Open Access in the biomedical field.

Quoted from Peter Suber Blog By an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 388-13 the House of Representatives adopted on Thursday, September 09, 2004, the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies (H.R. 5006). The bill includes the directive to the NIH to develop an open-access plan by December 1, 2004.

• Bill of Appropriation (September 09, 2004) ( original link )
• Section containing the directive to NIH
• NIH Open-Access Plan Frequently Asked Questions

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

2d Session

108-636
 

--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATION BILL, 2005

     NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

The Committee provides $316,947,000 for the National Library of Medicine
(NLM), which is $7,902,000 above the fiscal year 2004 comparable level
and the same as the budget request. In addition, $8,200,000 is made
available from program evaluation funds as requested by the
Administration to support the National Center on Health Services
Research. The same amount was provided last year.

/Mission./--The National Library of Medicine collects, organizes,
disseminates, and preserves biomedical literature in all forms,
regardless of country of origin, language, or historical period. The
Library's collection is widely available; it may be consulted at the NLM
facility on the NIH campus; items may be requested on interlibrary loan;
and the extensive NLM bibliographic databases may be searched online by
health professionals around the world. NLM has a program of outreach to
acquaint health professions with available NLM services. The Library
also is mandated to conduct research into biomedical communications and
biotechnology; to award grants in support of health science libraries
and medical informatics research and training; and to create specialized
information services in such areas as health services research,
environmental health, AIDS, hazardous substances, and toxicology.

/Outreach./--The Committee encourages NLM to continue its outreach
activities aimed at educating health care professionals and the general
public about the Library's products and services, in coordination with
medical librarians and other health information specialists.

/PubMed Central./--The Committee commends NLM for its leadership in
developing PubMed Central, an electronic online repository for life
science articles. Because of the high level of expertise health
information specialists have in the organization, collection, and
dissemination of medical information, the Committee believes that health
sciences librarians have a key role to play in the further development
of PubMed Central. The Committee encourages NLM to work with the medical
library community regarding issues related to copyright, fair use,
peer-review and classification of information on PubMed Central.

Access to research results./--The Committee is very concerned that
there is insufficient public access to reports and data resulting from
NIH-funded research. This situation, which has been exacerbated by the
dramatic rise in scientific journal subscription prices, is contrary to
the best interests of the U.S. taxpayers who paid for this research. The
Committee is aware of a proposal to make the complete text of articles
and supplemental materials generated by NIH-funded research available on
PubMed Central (PMC), the digital library maintained by the National
Library of Medicine (NLM). The Committee supports this proposal and
recommends that NIH develop a policy, to apply from FY 2005 forward,
requiring that a complete electronic copy of any manuscript reporting
work supported by NIH grants or contracts be provided to PMC upon
acceptance  of the manuscript for publication in any scientific journal
listed in the NLM's PubMed directory. Under this proposal, NLM would
commence making these reports, together with supplemental materials,
freely and continuously available six months after publication or
 immediately in cases in which some or all of the publication costs are
paid with NIH grant funds. For this purpose, `publication costs' would
include fees charged by a publisher, such as color and page charges, or
fees for digital distribution. NIH is instructed to submit a report to
the Committee by December 1, 2004 about how it intends to implement this
policy, including how it will ensure the reservation of rights by the
NIH grantee, if required, to permit placement of the article in PMC and
to allow appropriate public uses of this literature.