Washington — The U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday to increase spending for biomedical and physical-sciences research by $1.2-billion for the remainder of 2008 and expand tuition benefits for veterans.

The money was contained in a bill to finance the Iraq war. The veterans’ benefits are identical to those in the version of the bill approved on Thursday by the House of Representatives. Unlike the House, however, the Senate committee did not offset the cost of the tuition benefits — $52-billion over 10 years — with a tax increase on wealthy individuals. (It’s unclear whether that offset, which is required under House rules, would survive a vote in the full Senate, where several lawmakers oppose a tax increase.)

For scientific research, the Senate bill would reportedly add $400-million each for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy and $200-million each for the National Science Foundation and NASA. Universities have lobbied for an increase because last December Congress provided minimal increases for research at all of those agencies in the regular appropriations bill for the 2008 fiscal year, which ends in September.

But unlike the Senate panel, the House committee added no money for science in the measure. President Bush has already vowed to veto the bill if it contains nondefense spending, and Congress’s Democratic leaders may be hard-pressed to persuade enough Republicans to help them override a veto. —Jeffrey Brainard and Kelly Field