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Washington in brief

Report: Frist to break with Bush on stem cell research

By wire services
Published July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has decided to support a bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research - a move that could push it closer to passage and force a confrontation with the White House, which is threatening to veto the measure.

Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who said last month he did not support expanding financing "at this juncture," is expected to announce his decision today in a Senate speech. In it, he says that while he has reservations about altering Bush's 4-year-old policy, which placed strict limits on taxpayer funding for the work, he supports the bill nonetheless.

"While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitations put in place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases," Frist will say, according to a text of the speech provided by his office to the New York Times. "Therefore, I believe the president's policy should be modified."

The stem cell bill has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate, where competing measures are also under consideration.

WASHINGTON - The nation's gun lobby is close to realizing a long-sought goal of protecting gun manufacturers from being held legally responsible for violent crimes committed with their handguns and automatic weapons.

A vote could come today on a bill that would make it virtually impossible for victims of gun violence to file civil suits against the firearm industry.

If the Senate approves the measure, the House is likely to approve a companion measure - probably after the August recess - and send it on to President Bush for his signature.

The legislation would provide immunity from lawsuits to gun manufacturers, gun dealers, distributors and importers of firearms and ammunition.

WASHINGTON - Legislation that would limit damages for medical malpractice passed the House on Thursday for the third consecutive year.

The bill, approved by a vote of 230-194, would cap awards for pain and suffering at $250,000. There would be no limit on economic damages, which provide reimbursement for such expenses as medical bills and lost wages. The bill would in many cases cap punitive damages at $250,000.

Supporters of the caps say they will stabilize malpractice insurance premiums. Many in the health care industry say the rising premiums have forced some doctors out of business, or forced them to move to states where caps exist.

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Thursday to set up a national sex offender database that would be available on the Internet and require strict monitoring of high-risk sex offenders for a year after their release from prison.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is known as "Dru's Law" for Dru Sjodin, a 22-year-old University of North Dakota student who was abducted from a shopping mall and killed in 2003.

The bill would create a national sex offender registry that would allow the public to search by ZIP code across state lines.

WASHINGTON - Congress is blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from relying on tests that expose pregnant women, infants and children to pesticides when the agency considers permits for pest killers.

Environmentalists and the pesticide industry claimed victory on the measure. It was a compromise from versions passed last month by the House and Senate that would have banned the EPA's use of all data from human pesticide testing for a year.

[Last modified July 29, 2005, 00:52:10]