New project to establish ES data "repository"

From ScienceDaily:

GENESI-DR (Ground European Network for Earth Science
Interoperations - Digital Repositories), an ESA-led, European
Commission (EC)-funded two-year project, is taking the lead
in providing reliable, easy, long-term access to Earth Science
data via the Internet.

In practice, institutions have done the same thing at a much smaller scale -- within their organisation. From the description, it looks like Open Access of Earth Science data, which is quite exciting news for us in Europe. However,

GENESI-DR will allow scientists from different Earth Science
disciplines located across Europe to locate, access, combine
and integrate historical and fresh Earth-related data from
space, airbourne and in-situ sensors archived in large
distributed repositories.

Does this mean that it is only ``by Europeans, for Europeans''? It would be great if ESA can get the U.S. on board, who is at present the biggest RS and other ES data provider with some of the best equipment.