The Texas House of Representatives sidestepped a hot-button debate on stem-cell research this week after the University of Texas System withdrew a proposal to use state bond funds to build a $41.1-million facility for biomedical research and education, the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman reported today. A state lawmaker had threatened to amend a $3.7-billion bond package for construction on public-college campuses to prohibit biomedical research at facilities built with bond funds if federal dollars could not be spent on the research.
In 2001 the Bush administration set rules limiting federal spending on embryonic-stem-cell research to previously established stem-cell lines (The Chronicle, August 17, 2001).
The legislator, Geanie W. Morrison, a Republican, withdrew the amendment after university officials agreed to remove the “admittedly controversial facility,” which was to have been built at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, from the list of projects to be supported by the bond sale.
