Yes, indeed it is. But the commenter to which I was responding didn't seem to know that what he/she was proposing has already been in place for several years, at least insofar as NIH grants are concerned.
I knew, but decided to lump NIH in because it doesn't require any open access to data collected with taxpayer monies.
I thought this bill is for private-sector research, which NIH funded research is not. Or am I missing something in how the lawyers are going to twist this once it gets passed?
"Private sector research works" is the disingenuous and obfuscating term that the publishers are using to call publicly funded research manuscripts that the publisher has then 'added value' to. When they say they 'add value', what they mean is copy editing, archiving, distribution, etc. They include in this peer-reviewing the manuscript, but in reality that is done for free by scientists whose salaries are again, mostly paid for by public funds.
There is no post-hoc twisting involved. The bill is consciously and deliberately deceptively-worded to make you think it only applies to private sector research. That is false.