I think the author is not looking deep enough. Universities form and fund consortiums all the time for one reason or another. The US Government funds even more and has more resources. If either the universities, or the US government, wanted academic research to be public by default, they could bypass the publishers entirely and do so with comparatively little effort. In this case the "publishers" are merely the fall…
So your argument is "there must be some deep conspiracy which I cannot explain yet I will suggest with ominous tones, so let's do nothing." Classic muddying the waters.
Conspiracy theory aside, you have to realize that no law ever gets passed, or even makes it to a full vote, unless multiple parties are successfully convinced that they, their constituents, and their campaign contributors will benefit from the proposed bill.
No muddying of the waters intended. And you're right, I don't know exactly what the real motivations behind this are - however I am sure that there is more than simply the profit margins of publishers at stake here.