Screaming Penguin

The second factor is the pace of research abroad, and potential for America to lose jobs and investment. Some U.S. researchers, for instance, have already set up overseas labs to evade Bush's policy. "It's been three years and I think it's time to [review the policy]," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a recent press conference. "I'm very interested in answering the question whether or not scientists are really leaving this country in droves because of the limitations on research." And as rivals abroad make advances, frustrated U.S. researchers are pressing Congress hard. An aide to Hutchison, for instance, says the Texas senator was swayed by entreaties from researchers at places like Houston's Baylor College of Medicine--"a major part of the local economic engine," as an aide puts it. (Social conservatives, in turn, imply that members are being bought off by greedy private companies: "The biotech industry is money-hungry enough to do anything they can to get members of Congress to sign onto these letters," says Connie Mackey, legislative director of the Family Research Council.)