WASHINGTON – A spending bill with language expanding embryonic stem cell research is on its way to the U.S. Senate floor, a day after President Bush vetoed Denver congresswoman Diana DeGette’s stem cell bill..
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation that funds federal health, labor and education departments on a 26-3 vote. The $152 billion spending bill includes a provision that would allow federally-funded research on embryonic stem cell lines that were created prior to June 15, 2007.
That language would move up the date President Bush has set as the cutoff for research funded with taxpayer money. His executive order of Aug. 9, 2001 limited research to cell lines created before 9 p.m. that day.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who along with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., inserted the language, said the new date would give scientists more than 400 cell lines eligible for federally-funded research.
“This is not the best solution,” Harkin said after the vote. “But at least we’ll pick up a year or two until we get a new president.”
Specter criticized the president’s veto on DeGette’s bill, saying “we ought not to make political decisions where science is concerned.”
The bill will go to the Senate floor in July, he said. Asked whether Bush would veto the bill because of the stem cell language, Harkin said Bush might veto it because of the funding level, which is $10 billion more than Bush’s request.
The White House said it had not seen the Harkin-Specter language but that Bush’s position on embryonic stem cell research is clear
Bush vetoed the bill from DeGette, D-Denver, that would have entirely lifted Bush’s restriction, allowing research on cells created for invitro fertilization and scheduled to be discarded.
The spending bill also includes $4 million for embryo adoption, something Bush has pointed to as an alternative to discarding leftover invitro fertilization embryos.
“Let’s adopt all we can,” Specter said.
