Senate and House negotiators reportedly stripped out billions of dollars in tax cuts for big telcos, including Verizon Communications, Inc., and AT&T, from the compromise $789-billion stimulus package that were included in the Senate version to spur expansion of broadband coverage into rural areas.

The Senate money measure had called for 10 percent tax credits for companies that increased Internet service in pockets where it exists but is scarce and a 20 percent tax breaks for building new networks in currently unserved parts of the country. The House bill did not contain any plan for tax credits.

The Senate this week okayed an amendment to the massive stimulus package to fork over an extra $6.5 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), bringing funding for the fed's biomedical research arm to $10 billion over two years.

"Including funding for the NIH in the bill will provide needed economic stimulus, enable long-term economic growth and save lives," co-sponsor Sen. Arlen Specter (R–Pa.) said in a statement. "The National Institutes of Health have been starved recently. This increase in funding will enable the [NIH] to continue to produce remarkable achievements in scientific advances."

According to Specter, the monies would be divvied up among NIH agencies in amounts proportional to their fiscal year 2008 funding. He said that economists estimate that the additional funds  could lead to 70,000 new jobs in the health industry over two years.

A bipartisan group of senators Thursday introduced a measure that would put a hold on $3 million in operating funds for the National Science Foundation (NSF) after an internal probe revealed that employees there accessed smut on government computers.

The measure, sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa), Barbara Mikulski (D–Md.) and Richard Shelby (R–Ala.), was offered as an amendment to the stimulus package now being debated in the Senate. It calls for the funds to be frozen until the NSF takes certain steps to prevent future Internet porn surfing, including hiring an independent counsel to provide oversight and reporting to Congress on progress made stemming access.

The move comes after the agency in its semiannual report released in September said that its inspector general, Thomas Cross, had uncovered seven cases in which NSF staffers were spending time on taxpayers' dime trolling the Net for porn.

"The kind of behavior outlined in the inspector general's report is outrageous, repugnant and illegal," Mikulski said in a statement. "It won't be tolerated. The NSF must get its act together and take the steps we've outlined to restore the kind of accountability and decency the public deserves from its federal agencies."