Exactly
If you look at the stopping of NASA funding ot SETI programs (which ban is still in effect, though many here try to deny it) you find that it was a weird coalition between Proxmire and the anti-NASA left liberals and the fundamentalist right. In point of fact, all of the NASA funded searches for habitable planets around other stars probably violate this ban, as may a number of astrobiology research grants.
IMO, just to remove the possibility of confusion, we need to get this provision/law removed as soon as possible.