That’s misleading. As talked openly about at the Conference, the study mandated by Congress is not being released publicly – or even to the Congress. What was released (above) is a 28-page redaction overseen, as I understand it from what was said at the Conference, by the White House OMB. The Study itself – a glossy, 271-page report – has, it was reported last week at the Conference, only been distributed – hardcopy only – to 100 people; many/most of them, members of the NASA-led effort who produced the report.
One person who requested a copy of the ‘real’ report from NASA HQ was told, by email:
“The document you requested was distributed as in hard copy as a “thank you” to team members and is not an official, distributable NASA publication. Copies beyond those for the study team are not available.

An electronic copy will not be distributed or posted by NASA. The document does not meet federal accessibility regulations (Section 508) and the cost of bringing the study document in line with these regulations has been determined to be prohibitive.”

It is my understanding that a Freedom of Information Act request has now been submitted for it. I do not know what the differences are between the two reports.

I believe strongly in the democratic process – if it is allowed to work. The Congressional study mandate was proper, far reaching, and an example of Congress actually doing its job well: asking for a technical assessment, and options, from one of the government’s agencies on an issue of national and planetary safety and security, clearly a government responsibility. It is also correctly not a partisan issue; in fact, it’s primary proponent was (still is, actually) a conservative Republican.
Even if Congress received the full study, and decided to do nothing (e.g, no increase or re-prioritizing of the government budget to add more focus to the NEO issue), at least it would have been publicly debated and decided; so if it needs to be revisited later, everyone knows what was decided, and why. We may only be shooting ourselves in the foot in not openly providing Congress all the information they asked for on this safety issue.

Bush’s priorities: run out the clock for the next 22 months, let whoever takes over deal with the mess. A fine strategery.

I suspect he’d find some way to use an Ares-1 launched Orion for this task! (And, if he did, cynical as it may be, I would fully support him in that.)

— Donald