Peter Suber says it all:

 From Peter Suber's Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_01_fosblogarchive.html#7012952153392015231

    Publishers oppose strengthening the NIH policy, again

    The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has released a June 25
    letter from a group of society publishers to members of Congress.
    http://www.pspcentral.org/publications/LHHS_appropriations_bills.pdf

    The letter opposes appropriations bills now before Congress that
    would strengthen the NIH public access policy by converting it from
    a request to a requirement.
    http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

    The publisher arguments are old, tired, and weak, and Congress now
    sees through them:

     -- an OA mandate at NIH will kill peer review...
     -- it will violate copyright...
     -- there's no need to compromise since publishers provide all the
        added value here and taxpayers none of it...
     -- European countries are not really adopting similar policies...
     -- researchers don't want it...
     -- the compliance rate with the current voluntary policy is not
        as dismal as it looks...
     -- and bad as the proposal is, it duplicates what publishers are
        already doing...

    I won't write a detailed rebuttal to this letter.  But for detailed
    rebuttals to very similar past letters, see my March 30, 2007,
    response to a March 26 AAP letter opposed to strengthening the NIH
    policy,
    http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_03_25_fosblogarchive.html#117526221745302635
    or my May 10, 2006, response to a May 9 AAP letter opposed to FRPAA .
    http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114726726169346460

  Posted by Peter Suber at 7/02/2007 04:48:00 PM.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_01_fosblogarchive.html#7012952153392015231

------------------

For more prior rebuttals (2004 - 2007) of the publishing lobby's same
old, tired, and weak arguments against the UK, RCUK, NIH, FRPAA and EC
OA Self-Archiving Mandate Proposals (and for the simple ways in which
each mandate can be formulated in such a way as to completely remove
the publishing lobby from the decision loop) see:

A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4091.html

Guide for the Perplexed: Re: UK Select Committee Inquiry
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4131.html

Critique of PSP/AAP Critique of NIH Proposal
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4146.html

Critique of STM Critique of NIH Proposal
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4174.html

Critique of Stanford/HighWire Press Critique of NIH Proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4178.html

Critique of PSP/AAP Critique of NIH Proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4146.html

Critique of APS Critique of NIH Proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4197.html

Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4307.html

Critique of Graham Taylor's critique of the RCUK policy proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4631.html

Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4674.html

Journal Publishing and Author Self-Archiving:
Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful Collaboration
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/20-guid.html

Rebuttal of STM Response to RCUK Self-Archiving Policy Proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4715.html

Critique of Research Fortnight article on RCUK policy proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4760.html

Not a Proud Day in the Annals of the Royal Society
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4931.html

Critique of AAP/PSP Critique of FRPAA Proposal
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5397.html

How to Counter All Opposition to the FRPAA Self-Archiving Mandate
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5398.html

Feedback on the Brussels EC Meeting on Open Access
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/6160.html

The Immediate-Deposit/Optional Access (ID/OA) Mandate:
Rationale and Model
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html

Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates:
What? Where? When? Why? How?
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

Stevan Harnad