The open access movement will take a hit if two amendments are voted into a bill currently on the Senate floor.

The two amendments were filed in the Senate on Friday to either strike or modify language from a Senate appropriations bill that would require NIH-funded research to be made publicly available. The provisions are part of the Senate appropriations bill for 2008, which totals about $150 billion in funding for the departments of Health and Human Services and Education. This bill, if passed, includes a public access provision stating that all research supported by NIH funds must be entered into the National Library of Medicine data base within one year of being published in a peer-reviewed journal. This bill was passed by the House of Representatives on July 19.

The amendments were filed at the end of the day on Friday (Oct 19) by James Inhofe, Republican senator from Oklahoma. The open access mandate in the bill isn't the first provision to be subjected to Senate alterations. Last week, language was removed from the bill that would have expanded federal funding of stem cell research.

One of the amendments, #3416, would eliminate the public access provision from the bill completely. The second amendment, #3417, would alter the language of the public access requirement, stating that public access to NIH-funded research be in accordance with the publisher's policies where the manuscript was published. Therefore, if certain journals do not require or allow published work to be made publicly available, this bill would not require them to do so.

An announcement from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access says: "Passage of either amendment would seriously undermine access to this important public resource, and damage the community's ability to advance scientific research and discovery."

The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin. A staff member in Harkin's Washington D.C. office told The Scientist that the Senate will be voting on the bill tomorrow (Oct 23) or Wednesday.