I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1247
To secure Federal access to scientific literature and other subscription services
by requiring Federal agencies and legislative branch research arms to
make recommendations on increasing agency library access to serials,
and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY12, 2025
Mr. F
OSTER(for himself, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. QUIGLEY, and Ms. NORTON) in-
troduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Over-
sight and Government Reform
A BILL
To secure Federal access to scientific literature and other
subscription services by requiring Federal agencies and
legislative branch research arms to make recommenda-
tions on increasing agency library access to serials, and
for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Well-Informed, Sci-4
entific, & Efficient Government Act of 2025’’ or the 5
‘‘WISE Government Act’’. 6
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SEC. 2. AGENCY JOURNAL SUBSCRIPTIONS. 1
(a) P
ROHIBITION ON NONDISCLOSURE PROVISION 2
FORJOURNALSUBSCRIPTIONS.—The head of an agency 3
may not enter into any contract for a journal subscription 4
that prohibits disclosure of the cost of the subscription to 5
another agency or the Library of Congress. 6
(b) E
MPLOYEEACCESS TOLIBRARYSUBSCRIP-7
TIONS.—Not later than 6 months after the date of the 8
enactment of this Act, the head of each agency shall re-9
quire that each library of the agency make easily and 10
clearly available to the employees of the agency, including 11
regional employees, through the intranet any policy or pro-12
cedure for employee access to a subscription of the library. 13
(c) R
EPORT ONINCREASINGACCESS TOSERIALS.— 14
Not later than 12 months after the date of the enactment 15
of this Act, the Administrator, in consultation with the 16
Library of Congress, the applicable agency libraries, and 17
other relevant stakeholders (including the Defense Tech-18
nical Information Center, the National Library of Medi-19
cine, the Education Resources Information Center, and 20
the National Technical Information Service) shall submit 21
to Congress and each agency library a report on increasing 22
agency library access to serials that includes— 23
(1) a survey of subscriptions purchased and 24
cost data for applicable agency libraries and the Li-25
brary of Congress; 26
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(2) an outline of any issues with agency access 1
to scientific serials and subscriptions, which may in-2
clude contract issues, concerns arising with new pub-3
lishing media (including print, online, and aggre-4
gated services), the ability of agency employees to 5
use agency library subscriptions in headquarters and 6
regional offices, purchasing system inefficiencies, 7
and price concerns; and 8
(3) recommendations on addressing issues, in-9
cluding short-term and long-term solutions and as-10
sessing the potential need for greater interagency 11
transparency and new purchasing models. 12
(d) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 13
(1) A
DMINISTRATOR.—The term ‘‘Adminis-14
trator’’ means the Administrator of General Serv-15
ices. 16
(2) A
GENCY.—The term ‘‘agency’’ has the 17
meaning given that term in section 551 of title 5, 18
United States Code. 19
(3) A
PPLICABLE AGENCY LIBRARY .—The term 20
‘‘applicable agency library’’ means the libraries of— 21
(A) the Executive departments listed in 22
section 101 of title 5, United States Code; 23
(B) the military departments listed in sec-24
tion 102 of title 5, United States Code; and 25
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(C) any agency with a scientific focus, in-1
cluding the Environmental Protection Agency 2
and the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-3
ministration. 4
(4) D
IRECTOR.—The term ‘‘Director’’ means 5
the Director of the Office of Management and Budg-6
et. 7
(e) R
ULE OFCONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this sec-8
tion may be construed as requiring the disclosure of mat-9
ters that are otherwise not subject to disclosure under sec-10
tion 552(b) of title 5, United States Code (commonly re-11
ferred to as the Freedom of Information Act). 12
Æ
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