June 21, 2007
Harkin & Specter To Add Stem Cell Provision To Spending Bill
In the wake of President Bush's veto of embryonic stem cell legislation Wednesday, leaders of the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee said they will include a provision in their spending bill to allow federal funding of a limited number of embryonic stem cells lines above the number Bush halted research at in 2001.
The move by Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., will allow federally funded research on embryonic stem cell lines derived before June 15, 2007, Harkin spokeswoman Jennifer Mullin said.
To be included in the spending measure would be the ethical guidelines in the bill that had been passed by Congress requiring federally funded embryonic stem cells be derived from embryos that come from in vitro fertilization clinics where they were slated for destruction.
"We assume the president will have no problem with this new provision," Mullin said. "It just updates his policy, while tightening the ethical guidelines on federally funded research."
Embryonic stem cell research supporters have questioned the president's 2001 executive order allowing limited federally funded research when Bush repeatedly has called research that destroys embryos unethical.
"Frankly, if the president feels so strongly that embryonic stem cell research is unethical, and if he feels equally strongly as he said today that other types of research can substitute for embryonic research, why does he let his 2001 executive order stand?" said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., the lead House member on the issue.
House leaders are unsure if they will include something similar to the Senate in their Labor-HHS spending bill, DeGette said. Democratic leaders will try to pass the bill again by tacking it onto must-pass bills, she added.
Meanwhile Wednesday, Republican Reps. Michael Castle of Delaware, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida predicted that the next president would sign the stem-cell measure.
Castle, a sponsor of the House bill, was less than sanguine about the chances of moving the legislation as part of a spending bill. "Attaching to appropriations bills may or may not bear fruit," he said.
-Anna Edney, CongressDaily
