The Senate this week will consider legislation to expand federal funding for scientific and medical research of human embryonic stem cells. It promises to be an emotional debate, largely uninfluenced by the sober calculus of the investment community. Whatever the outcome, investment opportunities are not immediate.

Large parts of the academic and scientific community insist on the medical benefits of expanded federal funding for such research, a view shared by Majority Leader Frist and many Senate Democrats. But the commercial benefits are not there yet.

For investors, the debate over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is an indication that profits are remote. In many, if not most, areas of technology – including electronics, chemistry, and computing – the frontiers of research and development are spearheaded by private business. Where profits are a powerful inducement, innovation needs little federal funding.

From pharmaceuticals to electronic monitoring equipment, much of medical research advances to the drumbeat of capitalism. Innovative ideas are rewarded. Tens of billions of private dollars in America and around the world finance new research because it offers visible roads to rewards.

Other areas of research have enormous merit and advance scientific knowledge, but promise little if any profit. Sponsors of such research request federal and other noncommercial funding because private investment would be profoundly risky, if not pointless.

Thus, in this week’s Senate debate, the primary issue is not whether stem cell research is lawful, but which forms the federal government will fund. Some day, perhaps, profit incentives for stem cell research will make federal funding unnecessary, but we are far from that outcome.

To date, private investment in stem cell research has been relatively small and unrewarding. Several publicly traded but relatively small American companies, including Aastrom, Geron, StemCells, and ViaCell, conduct research and development on stem cells. Many privately held companies also pursue stem cell research, but venture capital backing for stem cell research is waning.

Nor is there evidence of substantial private research and development migrating abroad. American financial institutions raise enormous funds to invest in businesses engaged in medical research both in America and abroad, but little if any of that money targets foreign investments in stem cell research companies.

Many leading medical research areas such as Germany have far greater restrictions on stem cell research than America. A few, such as Britain, Japan, Korea, and China, have relatively few restrictions on stem cell research, but most research is conducted by the government.

The current policy does not appear to have left America backward in the basic science of stem cell research. According to a recent study in “Nature Biotechnology,” American scientists account for the dominant share of research publications on embryonic stem cell research, and the number of publications is growing rapidly. Perhaps American science will be even more dominant with greater federal funding, but the stimulus for that funding should not be that we are falling hopelessly behind the rest of the world.

The Senate debate will not be strongly influenced by the investment community. Because investment opportunities are small, American financial institutions are not waiting to pour hundreds of billions of dollars in private companies if the federal government were to expand funding for stem cell research.

Most of the debate is about the ethics of stem cell research. Most Senate Republicans worry about the ethics of embryonic research, particularly about possible incentives for creating embryos for harvesting. Senate Democrats focus more on potential benefits from research.

Federally funded scientific research often takes years or decades to yield commercial applications, if ever. Embryonic stem cell research, despite all of its enormous promise and political cache, is no different. If it were different, it would not need federal funding. This week’s debate, while having enormous political stakes for the Senate, will simply confirm to investors that widespread commercial applications of stem cell research remain distant.

Almost five years ago, President Bush unveiled a policy that for the first time permitted limited federally funded research of stem cells. It was attacked from both sides at the time and will certainly be attacked again this week in the Senate. Despite the rhetoric, the policy has not put American scientists or investors at an international disadvantage.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.