Senate May Postpone Stem Cell Vote

[truthpusher]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5352964,00.html

Senate May Postpone Stem Cell Vote
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Tuesday October 18, 2005 11:31 PM
By LAURIE KELLMAN
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Associated Press Writer
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate wouldn't vote until next year on a House-passed bill to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research under a deal quietly being suggested by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Supporters of the stem cell bill insist they want the vote in 2005, as Frist, a supporter of the bill, has promised. But even they acknowledge there may not be time since the rest of this year's calendar is packed with disaster relief and spending bills, budget talks and Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination.

``The problem is, when do you get the floor time?'' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the stem cell bill's sponsor who also is overseeing the Miers confirmation hearings.

Specter, a cancer patient, had threatened to attach the stem cell measure to a must-pass spending bill for federal education, labor, health and welfare programs if Frist didn't schedule a separate vote on it. Specter chairs the appropriations subcommittee that's writing the spending bill.

In the deal Frist is floating, Specter would drop his threat in exchange for a stem cell vote set on a ``date certain'' in 2006, according to a Senate Republican official who demanded anonymity because negotiations were still taking place.

(snip)

complete story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5352964,00.html

[ck4829]

1. People are DYING NOW.

This CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT wait.