Bottom line: in 2006, Elsevier spent $2.84 million on lobbying Congress. That's less than it spent in 2005 but still its second-highest total ever. The company's US lobbying budget increased 610% from 1998 to 2006. Among the many bills on which Elsevier lobbied, presumably for amendment or defeat, was FRPAA and the two Labor/HHS appropriations bills (House and Senate) that would have strengthened the NIH policy from a request to a requirement.
PS: There's nothing illicit about this lobbying. Pro-OA groups lobbied for passage of the same three bills.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/24/2007 09:18:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.