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WASHINGTON -- The House passed and sent to President Bush legislation to ease restrictions on the federal financing of research on embryonic stem cells. But the bill is sure to draw a veto, and Congress is unlikely to be able to override it.

The House passed the bill, similar to one approved by the Senate, by a vote of 247 to 176 -- far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a promised presidential veto. Last July, Mr. Bush vetoed a similar bill.

"I am disappointed the leadership of Congress recycled an old bill that would simply overturn our country's carefully balanced policy on embryonic stem-cell research," Mr. Bush said. "If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos."

But Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.), who championed the bill and said stem-cell research is a promising source of treatments for an array of devastating diseases, including juvenile diabetes and Alzheimer's, accused Mr. Bush of being stubborn.

The vote came as newly published research suggested that scientific advances may eventually make it possible for researchers to skirt the ethical debates involving the use of embryos. Wednesday, the journal Nature published studies saying scientists succeeded in creating embryonic stem cells without using eggs or destroying embryos. The scientists reported they had returned mature cells, such as those from skin, into primordial, embryonic states.

Critics of the legislation seized on the research findings, saying they prove experimentation on embryos isn't necessary.

Proponents of embryo stem-cell research said, however, that there are no guarantees that such experiments will work on human cells and that scientists should have the freedom to pursue different types of research.

The legislation approved by Congress would allow federally funded scientists to experiment on cells obtained from spare embryos at fertility clinics. The extra embryos would be those donated for research by patients. Under current rules, which were issued by Mr. Bush in August 2001, federally funded scientists are restricted to doing research on embryonic stem cells from 80 or so cell lines that existed as of that date. Since then, many of the lines have turned out to be useless for research, and scientists have been pressing for a relaxation of the curbs.