NIH Mandatory Open Access Provision Becomes Law

President George W. Bush signs into law H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2008, also known at the omnibus, making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, after boarding Air Force One Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2007. White House photo by Chris Greenberg

Update 20071227T1147 : Title of the post changed to reflect the certainty of the bill being signed into law. Via Peter Suber's Open Access News comes word from the Washington Post that President Bush signed the bill yesterday. Congratulations to the Alliance for Taxpayer Access and all those involved in making this happen. I'm sure we'll be following the outcomes and impacts of this law for years to come.

The U.S. House and Senate have agreed on a Consolidated Appropriations Act that includes the NIH mandatory deposit and open access provision discussed on DLTJ previously:

SEC. 218. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

The text is unchanged from the previous version of the bill, which was vetoed by the president last month. According to an article on the front page of today's Washington Post and an article in the New York Times, the final steps of the bill are consideration by the House of an unrestricted war funds amendment, where passage is likely, followed by an expected signature by the President.

[ Update 20071220T0842 : As anticipated, the bill passed the house. ]

The text was modified to update a link from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/images/20071226-1_p122607cg-0018-515h.html to http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/12/images/20071226-1_p122607cg-0018-515h.html on January 20th, 2011.

The text was modified to update a link from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071226-1.html to http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071226-1.html on January 20th, 2011.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/26/AR2007122600877.html on January 20th, 2011.