Changes at NASA

Maybe this isn't news anymore, but I just learned that NASA quietly changed its mission statement to align more closely with the goals of the Bush administration. The mission statement once read: "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers... as only NASA can". The statement has been rewritten to read: "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research". This is very disconcerting to researchers who are studying climate change, as it means that a major funding agency is changing its focus away from a potential disaster on our home planet. Was this change an attempt to draw attention away from global warming, or was it just an honest attempt to more clearly seperate the various funding agencies (e.g., NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmosperic Administration)?