mr. speaker , i rise in very strong support of the stem cell research enhancement act , which will expand the federal policy and implement stricter ethical guidelines for this research . 
embryonic stem cell research is necessary in discovering the causes of a myriad of genetic diseases , to testing new drug therapies more efficiently on laboratory tissue instead of human volunteers , and to staving off the ravages of disease with the regeneration of our bodies ' essential organs . 
president george w. bush 's policy on stem cell research limits federal funding only to embryonic stem cell lines that were derived by august 9 , 2001 , the date of his policy announcement . 
of the 78 stem cell lines promised by president bush , only 22 are available to researchers . 
unfortunately these stem cell lines are aged and contaminated with mouse feeder cells , making their therapeutic use for humans uncertain . 
according to the majority of scientists , if these stem cell lines were transplanted into people , they would provoke dangerous viruses in humans . 
what is even more disturbing is the fact that there are at least 125 new stem cell lines , which are more pristine than the lines currently available on the national institutes of health registry , which are ineligible for federally-funded research because they were derived after august 9 , 2001 . 
this restrictive embryonic stem cell research policy is making it increasingly more difficult to attract new scientists to this area of research because of concerns that funding restrictions will keep this research from being successful . 
the stem cell research enhancement act does not change the current policy on the use of federal funds ; this measure simply seeks to lift the cutoff date for lines available for research . 
h.r. 810 will also strengthen the ethical standards guiding the federal research on stem cell lines and will ensure that embryos donated for stem cell research were created for the purposes of in vitro fertilization , in excess of clinical need , would have otherwise be discarded and involved no financial inducement . 
contrary to what opponents have been saying , the stem cell research enhancement act will not federally fund the destruction of embryos . 
h.r. 810 is clear that unused embryos will be used for embryonic stem cell research only by decision of the donor . 
no federally-funded research will be supported by this measure if the embryos were created and destroyed solely for this purpose . 
in february 2005 , the civil society institute conducted a nationwide survey of 1 , 022 adults and found that 70 percent supported bipartisan federal legislation to promote embryonic stem cell research . 
let public interest triumph over ideological special interests . 
public interest is best served when the medical and the scientific community is free to exercise their professional judgment in extending and enhancing human life . 
i urge all my colleagues to vote in favor of the stem cell research enhancement act . 
