The Appropriations Act for 2008 (H.R. 2764) has passed the House and the Senate and now awaits the signature of President Bush.  According to a New York Times article, President Bush is expected to sign the bill. Included in the bill is language that changes the current NIH Public Access Policy from voluntary to mandatory. The language reads as follows:

“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.”

Related article from the Washington Post by Rick Weiss: Measure Would Require Free Access To Results of NIH-Funded Research