The Science and Technology Policy Office has a threefold mission:

• To provide the President and his senior staff with accurate, relevant,
  and timely scientific and technical advice on all matters of consequence;
• To ensure that the policies of the Executive Branch are informed by sound science
• To ensure that the scientific and technical work of the Executive Branch is
  properly coordinated so as to provide the greatest benefit to society.

In accordance to that mission, the STPO has just posted two Requests for Information (RFI)
regarding two fundamental practices of Open Science.

1) Request for Information:

Public Access to Digital Data
Resulting From Federally Funded Scientific Research

http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/11/04/2011-28621/request-for-information-public-access-to-digital-data-resulting-from-federally-funded-scientific#p-4 

…to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and encouraging broad public access to unclassified digital data that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council’s Interagency Working Group on Digital Data.

Response Date: January 12, 2012.

All comments must be submitted electronically to: digitaldata@ostp.gov.

and

2) Request for Information:

Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications
Resulting From Federally Funded Research

http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/11/04/2011-28623/request-for-information-public-access-to-peer-reviewed-scholarly-publications-resulting-from

…to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and broad public access to the peer-reviewed scholarly publications that result from federally funded scientific research.

The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council’s Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications

Response Date: January 12, 2012.

All comments must be submitted electronically to: digitaldata@ostp.gov.

These are two golden opportunities to raise your voice in support of the basic economic logic that the outcome of publicly funded research should be made freely available to the public.