Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman

Not content to rest on his laurels after securing $10 billion in Congressional largesse for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Senator Arlen Specter (pictured right; Republican, Pennsylvania), with Tom Harkin (Democrat, Iowa), another leading NIH booster on Capitol Hill, last week introduced legislation freeing up federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act explicitly permits federal funding for research on stem cell lines derived with parental permission from embryos left over at fertility clinics and otherwise slated for destruction. The identical bill – which then-senator Barack Obama cosponsored – was enacted twice by Congress during the Bush administration, and twice vetoed by then-president Bush. It was introduced in the House on 4 February by Rep. Diana DeGette (Democrat, Colorado.) You can read the text of the legislation here by entering bill number H.R. 873.

President Obama had promised to use an executive order to reverse Bush’s 2001 policy that limits federal funding to research on a score of stem cell lines derived before August of that year. But backers say legislation is important to give the strongest legal footing to a policy change that is likely to be challenged by opponents in court – and to avoid a “ping pong” effect that results when successive presidents reverse each other’s executive orders.

Image: Arlen Specter/S Walsh/AP