sell access to the info<\/a>, and claimed the government was unfairly competing with them.<\/p>\nProponents of the site’s closure said the move fell into line with a federal law that forbids the government to compete with the private sector in business.
\n“The Department of Energy carefully reviewed Pubscience in light of existing private-sector products and found that Pubscience substantially duplicated private-sector offerings,” said David LeDuc, public policy director at the Software & Information Industry Association, the chief trade group for the software and digital content industry, which had lobbied for the site’s closure since its inception.<\/p>\n
Egad! And I’m forming a mercenary company right now, and plan to sue the US Army for competing unfairly with all of its “taxpayer subsidies” against my “private sector” military.<\/p>\n
Launched in 1999, Pubscience contained research materials from more than 1,400 scientific periodicals. Early on, the site was promoted as a benefit to libraries, government researchers, industrial scientists, educators and students. It represented a natural evolution of more than 50 years of work by the DOE\u2019s Office of Scientific and Technical Information to disseminate research, according to the Association of Research Libraries home page.
\nAccording to the site, the government subsidizes 80 percent to 90 percent of scientific research and development within the private sector with billions of taxpayer dollars, so it would follow that the site was an extension of that benefit to researchers. <\/p>\n
I don’t notice the private documentation companies clamoring to bid on the documents themselves …<\/p>\n
Paul Uhlir, director of international scientific and technical information programs at the National Academy of Sciences, said that it’s a loss for the research community because the Pubscience site offered a more comprehensive set of documents than those in the market currently.<\/p>\n
Now that these firms will be doing a much better<\/s> more profitable job than the Feds were, what’s next?<\/p>\n
Uhlir added that other government agencies have been targeted by private interest groups to remove data from the Internet. For example, companies that provide weather data to broadcasters and other outfits have sent letters to the National Weather Service and the NOAA asking them to remove certain weather data from their Web sites, he said. In the past, other trade groups have lobbied the National Institute of Health to take down Pubmed central, a medical and health-related research site similar to the science venture. <\/p>\n
Y’know, I think I’m going to set up a printing press and make people pay me to print out twenty dollar bills. Then those bloated bureaucrats at the Treasury Dept., with their unfairly-subsidized and outrageously-competitive Bureau of Engraving will have to face the music …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A huge on-line database of “more than 2 million documents on physical sciences and energy-related research,” most of them at least partially funded by tax dollars, and provided for free…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32376,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/01\/heaven-forbid-that-a-regulator-couldnt-function-in-the-private-sector.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":0},"title":"Heaven forbid that a regulator couldn't "function in the private sector…","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Feb-13 5:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Heaven forbid that a regulator couldn't \"function in the private sector\"Sigh. \u00a0Yeah, there are a lot of things I've liked about Obama. His financial appointments haven't been among them.'It's certainly strange that White has to qualify the idea that bringing cases is a positive thing in a government official \u2013\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26012,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/03\/on-the-higher-pay-of-all-those-federal-workers.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":1},"title":"On the higher pay of all those federal workers","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Feb-12 7:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Part of what's amusing\/maddening about the debate is that it's couched (by government critics) as being \"unfair\" -- it's \"unfair\" that federal workers earn more, or get better benefits, or whatever.Of course, I strongly suspect most of those same people would vilify any attempt to discuss \"fairness\" in private industry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8212,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/25\/call_us_nutty.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":2},"title":"“Call us nutty”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 25-Apr-05 1:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Political patronage is a mixed bag. On the one hand, folks expect that those in democratically-elected power get to call at least some of the tune. Certain elements of the...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28280,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/14\/was-this-the-worst-jobs-recovery-in-modern-times.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":3},"title":"Was this the worst jobs\u00a0recovery in modern times?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Jun-12 3:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Nope, when you take into account private sector jobs vs. public sector jobs -- and keep in mind who's been choking off public sector jobs.That said, for below the tag line for this article, Derek Thompson wins the Internet for today. Embedded Link Was Obama's Recovery the Worst in Modern\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25154,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/06\/jobs.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":4},"title":"Jobs!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Jan-12 11:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"That's actually very good news. It would be even better overall employment news if we hadn't gutted public sector jobs at the same time ... #ddtb Embedded Link Private Sector In 2011 Added Most Jobs Since 2005 Today\u2019s jobs report shows that the economy ended the year on a relative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19296,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/21\/unblogged-bits-sun-21-nov-10-0431.html","url_meta":{"origin":3436,"position":5},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sun. 21-Nov-10 0431)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 21-Nov-10 4:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Ask Chris #34: Beyond Jack Kirby's Fourth World and the Secrets of the Batcave - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews - Of absolutely no interest to anyone but comics geeks.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}