A $1.1 trillion spending budget that will fund the federal
government through September successfully passed through
Congress on Thursday. President Obama quickly signed the bill
into law the following day. Aside from pushing off the threat of
another government shutdown, the 1,582 page-long budget also
ensures that the public will soon have access to more federally
funded scientific research. One provision of the budget calls
for select federal agencies with annual research budgets of at
least $100 million to provide the public with free internet
access to the papers they fund no later than 12 months after
publication in a peer-reviewed journal.  Those agencies include
the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of
Education, and Department of Labor. The measure ensures that
"more than $31 billion of the total $60 billion annual US
investment in taxpayer-funded research is now openly
accessible" according to SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and
Academic Resources Coalition).  It comes after a signi