WASHINGTON – Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a bipartisan group of colleagues renewed efforts Thursday to expand embryonic stem cell research, introducing legislation that would allow federal support for such research to be used in treating disease.

A similar bill did not get a vote last year. But Feinstein, D-Calif., Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts said they would push harder this year and expected more support from colleagues.

"Some major things have changed since the last Congress, and federal action has created a void. And this void is now being filled by states and by private entities," Feinstein said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "The result is a patchwork of laws, inadequate funding of research, and contaminated cell lines."

In California, voters in November overwhelmingly approved a measure allowing the state to borrow $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem cell research over 10 years. San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego and Emeryville are competing to land the headquarters for the research initiative.

Feinstein said that nearly 30 other states are also taking action on the issue, including three others that are allowing embryonic stem cell research: New Jersey, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. Five states have specifically prohibited the research.

"There's such an uneven panoply of laws across the United States," Feinstein said. She said the federal government must step in or risk scientists "going to Great Britain, they're going to go to China, go to South Korea."

Stem cells typically are taken from days-old human embryos and then grown in a laboratory into lines or colonies. Because the embryos are destroyed when the cells are extracted, the process is opposed by some conservatives who link it to abortion.

President Bush signed an executive order in August 2001 limiting federal research funding for stem cell research to 78 embryonic stem cell lines then in existence.

But supporters of more research say that only 19 of those lines are now available to researchers and those available are contaminated with mouse feeder cells which makes their use for humans uncertain.

The senators' "Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2005" would make reproductive cloning, to produce a baby, a crime punishable by up to 10 years. But it would allow for "therapeutic cloning" for the purpose of obtaining stem cells to be used in treating disease.

It would require the informed consent of donors, prohibit the purchase or sale of unfertilized eggs, and prohibit research on any created embryo beyond 14 days.

The National Institutes of Health would help determine other ethical guidelines.

Because stem cells develop into the various types of cells that make up the human body, scientists believe they could be grown into replacement organs and tissues to treat a wide range of diseases, including Parkinson's, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's.