A government hearing set for next week will discuss a bill in the works that may address publishers' concerns with public access laws, according to the Library Journal.

The House Committee on the Judiciary hearing is slated for September 11, according to the committee's online schedule. Although text for the legislation, entitled "Fair copyright in research works act," has not yet been released, anonymous sources told the Library Journal that the bill is intended to address publishing groups' concerns that the National Institutes of Health public access mandate violates copyright.

Jonathan Godfrey, staff member in Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers' office, told The Scientist that the legislation is coming out of Howard Berman's office, chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Membership.

Berman's office did not immediately return calls for comment.

The National Institutes of Health implemented a mandate effective this past April, requiring all papers resulting from federal funding to be submitted to PubMed Central. There has been resistance from several publishing groups that claim the mandate violates copyright law.

Allan Adler, vice president for legal and government affairs at the Association of American Publishers declined to comment on the hearing, since no legislation text has been introduced. But he told The Scientist that "we shouldn't be surprised if the hearing gets moved or if something pushes it off the schedule," since the House is hoping to adjourn by September 26.