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An important subcommittee of the US Senate has expressed strong reservations about a plan to double civilian research and development spending over the next ten years, casting yet further doubt on the chances that the ambitious proposal will pass into law.

Senator Bill Frist (Republican, Tennessee), chair of the science, technology and space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, said after a hearing on the proposed law last week that it was “likely” that his committee would draft an alternative proposal.

The proposed National Research Investment Act, or S1305, is backed by 15 senators, and would set spending limits for all major science agencies that would allow their funding to double over the next ten years. These limits would be reached only if appropriations committees, which exercise the real budgetary power in the Congress, chose to reach them.

Frist says he would prefer a bill that could gather the signatures of 30 or 40 senators and could actually be considered on the Senate floor. “We want to do something that will not be a useless exercise, something that is more than symbolic,” he says. Frist adds that the numbers in his bill may be “tied to indices”, such as the rate of inflation or growth in national product.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, shares Frist's feelings. “We'll draw up a bill that has a greater chance of passing,” he says. However, observers think there is little chance of either S1305 or an alternative measure passing the Senate this year.

Senators Phil Gramm (Republican, Texas), Jeff Bingaman (Democrat, New Mexico), Joseph Lieberman (Democrat, Connecticut) and Arlen Specter (Republican, Pennsylvania) all testified before the subcommittee in favour of S1305. Pete Domenici (Republican, New Mexico), chairman of the powerful Budget Committee, who also supports the measure, disappointed his allies by not showing up to testify.

The main point being pushed by the bill's advocates is that it deserves support because its “doubling over ten years” message is, in Lieberman's words, “simple, easily understandable and easy to communicate”.

Science lobbyists still hope that Frist and Rockefeller will talk to S1305's supporters and eventually come round to backing a similar measure. In the meantime, they see the proposal as a useful rallying cry for science funding.

But George Brown (Democrat, California), senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Science Committee, made his fiercest attack yet on the measure in addressing a meeting last week of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “It's a basic scam by a number of senators,” he said. “It ain't going to happen, it's impossible; [its supporters] aim to get a lot of good press releases out of it and then forget it after the elections.”