An open letter to Congresscritters from prestigious folk such as Apollo 17 Astronaut, Harrison Schmitt; Neil Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium; Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Princeton University; Lucy Ann McFadden, NEO scientist at the University of Maryland; New York University professor and author, William Burrows; John Lewis, a scientist at the University of Arizona, Tucson; and Thomas Jones, former astronaut and veteran of four shuttle missions urging Congress to raise telescope search funding to $20M and explore NEOs.

"It may very well take an impact to shake things up and make the government act," Shullte astronaut Jones said. "But since it's a basic responsibility of government to provide for the common defense, and since that mission is spread over many agencies, we thought that Congress is the right body to address the hazard, and to direct a joint approach."
"It seems no one agency desires to take the lead on this, but since many have roles to play, from Homeland Security to Defense to NASA, our hope is that Congress can direct a concerted plan of action," Jones told SPACE.com.

Gee, haven't we read ol' EPG's rant here whenever I correctly mention DOD as potentially having responsibility for this issue? Instead, the old coot goes off on a irrelevant rant about (sic) Mark's Mars money. At least it would give Homes Security something productive to do instead of strip searching flight attendants.

-p (noticed EPG's sig missing from the NEO prestigious folk)