Washington—The U.S. Senate has adopted a pair of amendments to its budget blueprint that would raise spending on the National Institutes of Health and provide lawmakers with the authority to expand federal lending.

The first amendment, offered by two senators — Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, and Arlen Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania — would authorize an additional $2.1-billion for the National Institutes of Health. It would be up to Congressional appropriators to actually provide that money.

The second amendment, which was offered by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate education committee, would authorize lawmakers to use a federal “reserve fund” created in the blueprint to raise federal borrowing limits. The reserve fund does not actually contain any money.

The amendments came up during debate today on the Senate’s budget resolution for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins on October 1.

Approval of the Kennedy amendment came two days after an aide to Mr. Kennedy told the Career College Association that the senator would offer legislation to expand federal student lending. The aide did not offer details, but said Mr. Kennedy was concerned that the continuing credit crunch could make it tougher for students with less-than-stellar credit to obtain private loans in the coming year.

Mr. Kennedy’s legislation, which has not yet been introduced, would allow students to borrow more from the federal government so that they did not have to depend as heavily on private loans. The amendment adopted yesterday would remove procedural roadblocks to that bill.

Under current law, undergraduates who are dependents of their parents can borrow $3,500 to $5,500 in federal loans a year, depending on the type of institution they attend. Over the course of their undergraduate careers, they can borrow $23,000. Independent students can borrow about double that amount. —Kelly Field