Posted on 01/02/2007 6:59:45 PM PST by Coleus
To consider what North Carolina should do about stem-cell research, 12 state lawmakers began meeting in March 2005. They had about six hearings with testimony from at least 12 experts. On Tuesday, the committee met to vote on its recommendation, which is one sentence long. It reads:
"The House Select Committee on Stem Cell Research encourages the General Assembly to enact legislation to provide ethical guidelines for the conduct of stem cell research in the State."
The committee gave no guidance as to what those ethical guidelines ought to say, or what the new General Assembly should do about stem-cell research, if anything, when it convenes Jan. 24. The meeting Tuesday lasted seven minutes. Stem-cell research is so controversial that members couldn't agree on a more substantive proposal, said Rep. Martha Alexander, D-Mecklenburg, a co-chairwoman of the committee.
"Sometimes committees come out with very specific bills," Alexander said. "We'll have a full discussion, I'm sure, in whatever committee, if someone files a bill." Recently elected to her eighth term in the House, Alexander said she had heard of other committees that, after studying an issue, fail to make recommendations. But she said she never served on one before Tuesday.
Several states have drafted policies or provided money to get around federal restrictions on stem-cell research. In 2004, California voters supported $3 billion in bonds for that purpose, hoping that research on stem cells, including those from human embryos, would lead to medical advances. The legislative committee in Raleigh considered endorsing an end to federal restrictions, imposed in 2001 by President Bush, but a majority opposed that idea. Members voted unanimously for the one-sentence recommendation.
"The fact that the proposal is much more general than the previous proposals is an acknowledgment of the controversy and the striking difference of opinion surrounding this issue," said John Rustin, a lobbyist for the conservative N.C. Family Policy Council. It's difficult to say how much taxpayers paid for the committee's work. A lawmaker gets $104 a day for meals and lodging when on official business, such as traveling to Raleigh for a committee, so the committee could have spent $7,488 on per diem alone.
Rep. Earl Jones, D-Guilford, sponsored a bill in the 2005-06 legislative session to spend $10 million on stem-cell research. Jones, a co-chairman of the stem-cell committee, said he wasn't dismayed by the committee's results. "What I wanted to do with this select committee was more education," Jones said. "We had people come in and talk about ethics and that sort of thing."
The NC Legislature passes the buck on everything, except passing each other bucks.
NC ping
>>"We had people come in and talk about ethics and that sort of thing."<<
He wanted to say, "We had people come in and talk about the ethics of killing babies for profit and that sort of thing."
If they don't worry about ethics when it comes to how much they tax or how much they spend, why would they worry about what they fund?
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