Negotiator: Stem Cell Bill Differences More Numerous Than Believed
By Amy Lambiaso for the State House News Service
       House and Senate lawmakers have encountered more differences than they initially anticipated between two versions of proposals to sanction embryonic stem cell research, a key legislator said today.
       Sen. Bruce Tarr of Gloucester, one of two Republicans appointed late last week to the six-member conference committee hashing out differences between bills approved by the House and Senate, said legislative staff members have been comparing the bills and uncovered numerous differences.
       “There may be more than we might have estimated,” said Tarr, who voted for the Senate bill.
       The full conference committee has not yet held a formal meeting, but they have been having “informal conversations,” he said. Many of the outstanding issues deal with differing definitions, where the two branches are “trying to say the same thing in a different way,” he said.
       After the House approved its version of the bill last week, Rep. Daniel Bosley (D-North Adams), chairman of the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies who led the House’s effort, said the differences between the two bills encompass “a lot of little minor language things.”
       Lawmakers and observers say the major sticking point between the two branches involves how much oversight and authority the Department of Public Health should hold as the field of research develops.
       The House version, approved by a 117-37 margin, would give more licensing and regulatory oversight to the department. The Senate’s version, approved on a 35-2 vote, directs the department to promulgate regulations and sets up a 15-member biomedical research advisory council to oversee the industry.
       Some bill supporters worry that Gov. Mitt Romney, who oversees the DPH and is opposed to what he is calling the “radical cloning bill,” would make working conditions difficult for researchers if the bill calls for strong
regulation. Others say the Senate bill proposes too little regulation.
Tarr said he did not know which way conferees were leaning on the
regulatory issue.
       “There will be a role for DPH and there will be oversight,” he said.
Early this week, Senate President Robert Travaglini said he hoped conferees would reach an agreement by the end of the week, so members could begin “phase two” of the discussion- determining “to what degree the Commonwealth has a responsibility to financially participate, and even if we have one at all.”
       After daylong sessions last week, the House and Senate approved bills that would allow for so-called therapeutic cloning, or the creation of
unfertilized embryos for research purposes by the process of somatic cell
nuclear transfer. During debate, lawmakers added provisions intending to
avoid the exploitation of women, and defeated attempts by members of the Republican Party to ban therapeutic cloning – the portion of the bill that Romney finds most objectionable and has vowed to veto.