mr. speaker , before yielding to the gentlewoman from new york ( mrs. lowey ) xz4002460 , i would just yield a minute to myself to respond to a couple of comments . 
first of all , there is a misconception here . 
under the castle/degette bill , no public funds are used for embryo destruction . 
current law precludes that and we keep that under our bill . 
secondly , we are not spending $ 60 million through the nih through embryonic stem cell research . 
last year it was really $ 25 million , and the reason is because the president 's policy , issued in august of 2001 , has not worked . 
instead of 80 or 90 stem cell lines , we only had around 19 to 22 stem cell lines . 
and of those lines , all of them were contaminated with mouse `` feeder '' cells , and many of them were not available to researchers here in country . 
that is why we have to ethically expand embryonic stem cell research . 
mr. speaker , i yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from new york ( mrs. lowey ) xz4002460 . 
