Somehow, Chris, a variant of the Brown Ammendment got through both houses, wihtout deep pockets and without an advertising campaign.

Someday when you're older perhaps someone will explain to you how that happened.

The representatives have to face their constituents every two years, so they're faster to respond to issues than the senators, who face the voters only every four. Often their responses are not completely thought out, but sometimes they are very well thought out. In either case, they do respond faster.

If their ideas don't address the problems, then they loose office. There are no stupid representatives or senators - It is very diffficult even to get elected the first time, and holding onto office takes even more intelligence.

It will now be up to NASA to handle the new responsibility they've formally been given. I have the utmost confidence in the work of the Langley engineers, and thus the utmost confidence that CAPS is the optimum solution for dealing with the impact hazard (which includes impacts by comets as well as asteroids, by the way, which is what the legislation specifies, also by the way).