WASHINGTON — The Senate approved two stem cell research bills Wednesday: one President Bush has promised to veto and one he would sign.

Utah's Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett voted in favor of both bills, with Hatch taking to the floor twice urging members to support the bill the White House does not favor.

Hatch co-sponsored a bill offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that lifts federal funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The bill passed 63-34, but would need 67 votes to override Bush's promised veto.

The bill overturns a White House policy set in 2001 stating taxpayer money could only be used to study about 21 types of stem cells from human embryos, which limited government researchers to only a small portion of 400 proposed research projects.

The bill allows federal funding for work on cells from embryos donated by parents undergoing fertility treatments or those that would be thrown out by medical facilities. The House has passed a similar bill.

"This legislation crosses a moral line that would use taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos, and that's a moral line the president said he would not cross, and for those reasons he would veto this bill," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. Bush has vetoed similar legislation before — his only veto so far during his presidency.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who also co-sponsored the Reid bill, emphasized on the floor that the bill does not contain any federal money to destroy human embryos.

Meanwhile, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., introduced the second bill to limit any chance of human embryos being destroyed in the name of research.

"It is absolutely possible to further embryonic stem cell research today without destroying a viable embryo and have a plethora of available stem cells for researchers and for scientists," Isakson said. "This bill is a common-sense approach that protects and promotes the health of human life from conception to natural death."

The second bill banned any research on embryos unless they were "naturally dead." It also allows research on adult stem cells.

"Adult stem cells have no ethical strings attached," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who opposed the Reid bill and wanted the federal funding diverted to adult stem cell research instead. The second bill passed 70-28 but the House has not passed this legislation.

Perino said that bill "supports the use and further development of stem cell research, but without harming or destroying embryos."

"This is a bill that the president strongly supports and he would sign it should it make it to his desk," she said.