The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in New York. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we begin with an update on Japan's deadly earthquake, then the House Republican effort to get tough on crime. Next, extended excerpts from today's hearings on funding for public broadcasting, and finally a report from Oregon on jobs and the environment. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. FARNSWORTH: More than four thousand people have now been killed and nearly twenty-thousand injured by the earthquake near Kobe, Japan. It's the country's worst natural disaster in more than 70 years. Rescue workers and search dogs are working round the clock in an attempt to find some of the 700 people still missing. But with 30,000 buildings badly damaged or destroyed, the death toll is likely to rise. Aftershocks and power surges have set off new fires complicating rescue efforts. Most of the city is still without electricity or water. And about 270,000 people are crammed into several hundred makeshift shelters. We'll have more on this story after the News Summary. In Northern India, at least 125 people have been killed by avalanche in the Himalayan Mountains. Searches are underway for several hundred people who are still missing. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The squabble over Speaker Newt Gingrich's book deal continued today. Yesterday Congresswoman Carrie Meek, Democrat of Florida, took to the House floor to question the amount of money Gingrich might make. Republicans had her words stricken from the record, leading to Democratic charges of censorship. The Democratic Minority Whip, David Bonior, had this to say today.

DAVID BONIOR: We are being told that the Speaker is being placed above criticism and comments.

SPOKESMAN: The gentleman is incorrect in drawing that conclusion.

DAVID BONIOR: The issue is -- the issue that we -- that we have before us is basically closing down voices. The record of this House is being changed arbitrarily, committee meetings are being cut down prematurely, private meetings, and major policy issues are being held outside this institution. Members are being gagged on the House floor. The question I have, Mr. Speaker, is this is going to be the policy of the new majority in the 104th Congress.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

MR. LEHRER: Reporters asked Gingrich about the criticism. He cited conservative columnist Robert Novak's charge in today's Washington Post that House Democrats are out to destroy Gingrich.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH: I think you need to read the Novak column in its entirety and reflect on it, because the point of the column is that while the book is a detail in this fight, that there is a small group of people so bitter about losing control of the House that they have decided that, that any device which destroys me is legitimate.

MR. LEHRER: The House did begin debate today on unfunded mandates. Those are laws which Congress requires the states to enforce without giving them money to do so. A bill restricting them is expected to pass the House as early as next week. In the Senate, Democrats have resisted Republican efforts to end debate on the issue and bring it to a vote. A Republican attempt to put a time limit on the debate failed today by six votes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In economic news, the Commerce Department reported the nation's trade deficit grew more than 4 percent in November to more than $10 1/2 billion. A surge in oil and other imports contributed to the rise. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Average dropped nearly 47 points in heavy trading. Eighteen Cubans reached Miami this morning aboard a small boat. They are the first refugees to arrive since an exodus of Cuban boat people last summer. Cuba and the United States reached an agreement in September to curb the flow.

MR. LEHRER: Chechnya's rebels lost their battle for the presidential palace today. Russian forces seized the building and raised Russia's flag. Russia's President Yeltsin declared the military operation effectively over. Paul Davies of Independent Television News has more from Grozny.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: For six weeks, the presidential palace has been the symbol of Chechen resistance. Today the fighters admitted they'd been forced to abandon the battered building. An ITN camera witnessed the last 24 hours of the assault that broke Chechen resistance as Russian bombers dropped chaff to confuse ground-based missiles, before diving to add rockets and bombs to the artillery shells already raining on Chechen positions. Under such a bombardment, the Chechen fighters were forced to pull back and give up their palace. In his underground bunker, the chief of Chechen military police said it was not surrender but a strategic decision to withdraw from the palace. But even as he was talking, the Russians were bringing up more reinforcements to capitalize on their breakthrough. These are Spetsnaz, special forces trained for street fighting. In Grozny now, those civilians who can are leaving. Those with nowhere to go are becoming increasingly desperate, scuffles breaking out as mostly elderly men and women queued for bread sent in from neighboring Dagestan. Again, it is the civilians who are paying the price. Seconds before we arrived here, a shell had hit the road, seemingly killing seven people, but rescuers noticed that two were still alive. They warned us this neighborhood was now being targeted. This is a civilian area on the outskirts of the city. These people were civilians trying to flee the fighting. The blast from another shell blew two others off the road. Shrapnel hit our vehicle, but we were unharmed. The Chechens said at least seven people on the road had not been so fortunate.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That concludes our summary of today's news. Now it's on to an update on the Japanese earthquake, the Republican approach to crime, funding for public broadcasting, and Oregon's economic boom. UPDATE - AFTERSHOCK

MR. LEHRER: That deadly earthquake in Japan is our lead again tonight. Liz Donnelly of Independent Television News has an update report from the port city of Kobe.

LIZ DONNELLY, ITN: This morning at first light it was impossible to detect the trauma which has hit the city of Kobe, once renowned for its style and its beauty. Now, down in the city center, there's still a sense of disbelief as people wander around, gazing at the devastation, even now not really able to absorb its scale or the size of the reconstruction job ahead. On the surface, people seem calm, perhaps in shock, but hazards are everywhere. Fires are proving the most immediate. This was one of ninety caused by gas explosions, fueled by dry debris and whipped up by icy winds. Astonishingly, for this sophisticated nation, we didn't see a single fireman equipped with breathing apparatus. The men were left with just the protection of fire-proof garb. It's also hard to fathom why here in one of the most developed parts of the world firemen are slowed down because the water supply has been cut off, and they have to pump up supplies from the rivers below. The injured are still being brought to hospital, many with critical wounds. Inside, the scene is reminiscent of a third world war zone. The wards are desperately overstretched. There are nothing like enough beds to go round. This is the Higashi Kobe Hospital. It's only midday and already 600 new patients have arrived. "Water and food," says the chief administrator, "those are the real essentials, and we are desperately short." Doctors rush to examine Kimiyo Rosotoni, who's just arrived after being trapped beneath rubble since Tuesday. They had hoped to evacuate the serious cases to other hospitals with more facilities, but today the demand was just too much, and people like Kimiyo had to stay here. Katsuhiro Fukushima lay quietly, aware he was lucky to be alive after his third floor flat collapsed, trapping him inside.

KATSUHIRO FUKUSHIMA: [speaking through interpreter] I was kicking to attract attention, however people had great difficulty in pulling me out, although they tried again and again. Then, I think it was around noon yesterday, at long last they arrived to get me out. So many times I thought I would die it was such a long time. People outside said, "We will come back. We promise you we'll come back to get you out." It was such a long time until they did that I was wondering what was happening to them.

LIZ DONNELLY: More than 21,000 buildings have been destroyed or badly damaged, the majority, older wooden structures like this one. This morning, Megumi Hamada and her family came to try and salvage as much as they could from the rubble that had once been their home. Megumi had been cooking on the ground floor when the earthquake struck, and her house collapsed on top of her. Her children who escaped from the floor above tried to help her but found her leg trapped by a beam. Eventually, though, they did bring her out. Today there were no tears from Megumi or anyone else in the family, for they've all lost so much, instead, a calm acceptance astonishing to anyone from the West.

MEGUMI HAMADA: [speaking through interpreter] It's not only me suffering from this earthquake; everybody is suffering. So I am trying to be optimistic about life. The first thing I have to do is just to get out of this place and find a new place to live. After I sort myself out, I can bring my family back together.

LIZ DONNELLY: While Megumi was trying to recover her possessions, civil defense workers arrived to see if someone else might be buried beneath the house. Across the road, they were trying to discover what had happened to the family who once lived here. One neighbor told them he thought a woman had been killed but had no idea whether her husband and son were with her. The problems faced by the civil defense with no heat-detecting equipment are overwhelming. In the two hours we spent watching them, they found nothing with their spades or their hands, and at the time we left, heavy lifting equipment had arrived, but the crane operator said he was standing by, waiting for further orders. This area, known as Naduku, is amongst the most wrecked in Kobe. What on Monday were smart streets in a middle-class district now resemble scenes from a full-scale war. It's almost impossible to believe that until three days ago, this devastated area was home to a hundred families. But fire broke out in the news agency that was here, and it spread so quickly that many of those who'd survived the earthquake were burned to death. As darkness fell, the streets were scattered with small groups, huddled together, trying to keep out the bitter cold. Nearly 72 hours after the earthquake in this, the world's most technologically developed country, like Toshi Onishi, more than 10 percent of the population here are homeless. Hundreds of thousands more have little food and no water, electricity, or gas. The outside world may be inclined to judge Japan for failing to be adequately prepared, but this natural disaster was on such a scale, it's doubtful any amount of advance work would have prevented great suffering.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a new debate about crime, the public broadcasting hears, and job growth in Oregon. FOCUS - CRIME STOPPERS?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next, a look at crime in the 104th Congress. As part of their Contract With America, House Republicans have vowed to make major revisions in last year's crime bill. They want to put more emphasis on punishment and less on prevention, and to reallocate the crime bill money to reflect those priorities. That money is just beginning to flow into the states. Tom Bearden looked into how it's being used in Denver, Colorado, the place we've chosen as our observation post for the Republican's 100 days program.

MR. BEARDEN: It took months of acrimonious debate over assault weapons and midnight basketball before Congress passed the crime bill last year.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: [August 1994] This is the way Washington ought to work, and I hope it will work this way in the future. Let me remind you, this crime bill will put a hundred thousand police officers on our streets. It will keep repeat violent criminals off our streets, with longer sentences and with a "three strikes and your out" law and with funds to build prisons to hold those criminals. [applause]

MR. BEARDEN: While the political stars shared emotional moments at the signing ceremony, in the background was one man who actually has to make this new law work, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. Last December, Webb staged a ceremony of his own, walking through a crime-ridden neighborhood and opening a new storefront police office. Faced with a violent crime wave, Denver was accelerating a new approach to law enforcement called "community policing." The idea is to take a selected number of cops out of their patrol cars and put them into storefronts, on bicycles, and foot patrol. It's supposed to put them in direct contact with the people who live in the neighborhood and give police the ability to solve problems before they become crime. Police Chief David Michaud.

DAVID MICHAUD, Chief of Police, Denver: Built around communications skills, built around problem-solving skills, that's what we haven't been very good at.

WOMAN: St. Charles area needs some protection. They do. I mean, there are street gangs out there.

MR. BEARDEN: Many liked the idea and wanted it in their neighborhood, but Denver didn't have enough money. The city had applied for federal grants under previous legislation but was turned down twice. Twenty-six of the rookies now in the police training academy will be added to the community police force because the new crime bill appropriated enough money for Denver's grant to now be approved. Chief Michaud will assign them to a newly-established downtown precinct.

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: We want them to be very flexible. We want them to meet with community people and find out what the problems are in those neighborhoods. It may be our view that the problem in this particular neighborhood is narcotics, but when you talk to the people that live in that neighborhood, they view the biggest problem to say be -- might be graffiti.

MR. BEARDEN: Chief Michaud says the 26 new cops will be a big help, even though the city will have to eventually shoulder the entire cost of hiring them.

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: Denver has to make a match in the first year of 28 percent of the total cost. The second year it's 43 percent. The third year it's 48 percent, and then we're on our own. So if you want to talk about strings attached, that is the string, because it's eventually, the whole cost is borne by the general fund in Denver.

MR. BEARDEN: Would you have had these 26 officers without the federal seed money?

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: Well, it does drive the process, and it's a hard question to answer. I don't know if we could have pulled it off with 26 more officers.

SPOKESMAN: The first day you're in uniform you'll probably have an inspection.

MR. BEARDEN: The new police officers are the only visible sign of the crime bill money that's actually reached Denver. Most other elements of the bill have been authorized but not appropriated, i.e., allocated to a specific project. Other elements of the crime bill are still on "hold," waiting for money to flow. For example, the bill authorized $8 billion for prison construction, but some state officials wonder if they can afford to take any of that money because of the strings attached. The bill requires states to pass a truth in sentencing law. Prison inmates would have to serve 85 percent of their sentences. In Colorado today, after time off for good behavior, most inmates serve only about half of their sentences before being released. The catch is that when more inmates serve longer sentences, the state needs more beds to hold them, more beds that could possibly be built with the amount of money the feds are offering. In fact, Colorado officials believe that the number of beds that would be needed would cost twice as much as the estimated $47 million Washington would contribute. Aris Zavaras runs the state corrections department.

ARISTEDES ZAVARAS, Department of Corrections: What I would be saying is that to qualify for that $47 million, it may end up costing us many millions more just in construction cost, and then as I say, and I can't emphasize this enough, the real cost kicks in, in that 10, 11, 12 million dollars a year in operating expenses.

MR. BEARDEN: So you might get tens of millions of dollars for construction company and have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get it?

ARISTEDES ZAVARAS: That very easily could happen, Tom, that's correct.

MR. BEARDEN: State Rep. Doug Friednash does think Colorado does need a "truth in sentencing" law, even though it would be expensive. He is sponsoring such a bill in the current session of the legislature, but he doesn't count on the federal government paying for the prisons his plan would require.

DOUGLAS FRIEDNASH, State Representative [D]: I think that money is in extreme jeopardy, given even the new Congress. I'm not sure what vehicle is driving Congress today. Is it a deficit reduction vehicle, or is it the crime vehicle? And I think we won't know for sure until April or May or maybe even October before, before we know whether that money is going to be ultimately allocated and appropriated.

MR. BEARDEN: Colorado officials are equally skeptical about funding for what was one of the most bitterly debated parts of the crime bill, prevention programs. Some, including Chief Michaud, think the best way to deal with crime is to prevent it, by teaching children the right values.

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: It's my personal view that that impact has to be done when we are dealing with babies. We've got to start when they're babies. And I think in the long run, that's the only way that we're ever going to have any hope of turning this ugly cycle around that we find ourselves in, in so many of American cities.

MR. BEARDEN: Denver has a number of locally-funded recreation programs it would like to expand with federal dollars, but like the prison funding, little of the money authorized for prevention has actually been appropriated. Some state officials think the new Congress may never appropriate it. William Woodward is the director of the criminal justice division of the state patrol. He's crunched the numbers on the total amount Colorado might eventually receive from the crime bill.

WILLIAM WOODWARD, Department of Public Safety: I think in worst case, we might get something under $1/2 million, because that's really all that's been appropriated for this year. There are no appropriations for future years. If the maximum amount that's authorized into the future were actually, would actually show up in the future, then I think Colorado could get close to $60 million.

MR. BEARDEN: How likely is that to be authorized?

WILLIAM WOODWARD: I would be willing to bet you it would never happen.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That may very well be a correct assumption. At a hearing today in Washington, House Republicans outlined what they call the Take Back Our Streets Act. Among other things, it would rewrite many of the provisions of the compromise crime bill Congress passed last summer. Specifically, it would eliminate the money earmarked for prevention programs, add money for prison construction, and toughen up the sentencing guidelines.

REP. BILL McCOLLUM, [R] Florida: As I see it, HR3 accomplishes four important goals. First, it makes a major move to put deterrents back into our criminal justice system. We badly need to send the message when you do the crime, you do the time. Second, HR3 gets the federal government out of the way of state and local law enforcement, the front lines of the war against crime. It does this by curtailing endless appeals by state death row inmates who currently use federal law to delay justice for years and years. It restricts the ability of federal judges to seize control of local jails and state prisons as a result of lawsuits filed by prisoners, and it repeals dozens of federal grant programs that represent a Washington knows best approach to public safety. Third, HR3 accomplishes the goal of assisting state and local governments in the fight against crime, where such assistance is most needed. The bill calls for $10 billion in block grants to units of local government for the purpose of reducing crime and improving public safety. Local governments are free to use these funds in whatever manner they choose, including the hiring of more police and crime prevention. The bill also authorizes more than $10 billion for building, expanding, or operating state prisons. Finally, HR3 addresses the continuing problem of the criminal alien deportation by strengthening procedures for deporting such criminals and freeing up desperately needed funds for state prison beds. I believe the bill fundamentally addresses many of the concerns and fears about violent crime in America.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: I would say, Mr. Chairman, you have an impossible job. And that job is to convince America that Congress should turn around and go backwards, not march forward and solve new problems. Very simply put, this bill plows over old ground. It digs up old causes. It will tie up the House for weeks, Mr. Chairman, and it will do so needlessly, because America already has a good, tough, balanced crime bill. You can't stop crime with just cops. You can't stop crime with just prisons, and you can't stop crime with just prevention. You need a tough, smart balance in all of those, and that's what our bill gave America. This bill destroys that balance. It wipes out the prevention program that will keep millions of kids from ever picking up their first gun or ever using their first drug or joining their first gang. It tears up the contract that this Congress made last year with the American people to put a hundred thousand new cops on the beat, and it replaces the solid promises of our crime bill trust fund with a block grant program that's as slippery as an eel. That block grant program promises everything to everyone, but in the end, it delivers absolutely nothing to anybody.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We hear a sample of the crime debate now from two members of Congress from the Colorado delegation. They are Democrat Pat Schroeder and Republican Scott McInnis. Thank you for being with us. Congressman McInnis, to you first. Why do we need a new crime bill and specifically, what in your Colorado district leads you to want a new and different bill?

REP. McINNIS: Well, remember that one size doesn't fit all, and I think that crime in America and the resolution of crime in America can -- is best dictated at the local level and not by the people in Washington, D.C. As you saw from the previous clip that you've had on the show this evening, while there may have been good intent with last year's crime bill, the fact is very few of those dollars were actually being delivered, and then when they are delivered, as in the Denver situation, there are lots of strings attached. I think the block grant bill is the answer. You send block grants to the local communities and let the local communities determine what's best for them. You know what may be best for a district in Washington, D.C., or downtown New York City is a whole lot different than what might be best in the ranching community of Meeker, Colorado, or in the resort community of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. So I think the block grant makes a whole lot more sense, and we can deliver, which is something that this last bill has not done.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congresswoman Schroeder, what's wrong with that?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, first of all, I think the block grant is a joke. No one's ever going to see any money in the block grant. They cut it down by $2 1/2 million, and no money kicks in until all prisons are fully funded. I don't think there's any way in the world we'll live that long. And secondly, it puts police and prevention programs in together, and what a community could do is fund all their current police out of this and then give people tax rebates. That's not what we intended to do. We intended to help communities with an add-on. I think another piece is it really basically kills prevention. I think we just know it kills prevention, and one of the things in Denver that we did so well, was we put together this project pact of the federal government, the state government, and all the local communities sitting around the table together, and the Justice Department got them lots of revenues that were very similar to what would have come out of the crime bill had we not tampered with it, and we had a summer of safety, where for the first time our crime rate came down. And I want to tell you, people in Colorado are sold that prevention really works. You keep kids busy, and they stay out of trouble. And that's exactly what we want to have happen, and now we're never going to ever get a chance for this to work for other communities, but we were so fortunate to at least have shown it worked.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Congressman McInnis, it looks a little bit like we're re-living the battle over sort of between prevention and punishment from last year. Why do we have to do that?

REP. McINNIS: Oh, I don't think we are. I think the difference, excuse me, is the difference between prevention and hug-a-thug programs. You know, midnight basketball doesn't have a lot to do, a lot to help prevention of crime in Meeker, Colorado. The DARE program does. What the Republican --

MS. FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry. The what program?

REP. McINNIS: The DARE program, which is a program in the elementary and junior high schools. What this program by block grant is it allows a community like Meeker to go ahead with their DARE program and not be dictated by Washington, D.C.. It does keep in the prevention programs, but it does get rid of some programs that I call the hug-a-thug or pat-'em-on-the-back-and-tell-'em-to- behave programs like midnight basketball. Now, if somebody in New York City determines that that type of program -- and I have yet to be convinced it works -- but somebody in New York City thinks it works best for that city, they have the option under our bill to exercise that. So we have to make a clear distinction between prevention and social programs. Yes, we're tough on those social programs like midnight basketball, but, no, we are not cutting out prevention. Prevention makes a lot of sense. I used to be a cop. I know it makes sense, and we are protecting prevention, but we're keeping it at the local level.

REP. SCHROEDER: Let me respond to that, because let me try one more time. I must not have been clear. No. 1, prevention really is dead, because in this new block grant is both police money and prevention money. The whole thing is lowered by $2 1/2 billion from what it was before, and you never see one dime from that whole block grant unless they fully fund all the prisons. Now, I just don't think that's realistically going to happen even in our state, where we're not complying anywhere near. We're only getting -- people are only serving 50 percent of the time, and we haven't been able to build prisons fast enough. So I'm not sure we'll ever get to that level. So what we're really saying is we're dangling something out in front of communities, but, guess what, it's not really there, it's not going to be reachable, and I think that's the difference. Secondly, let me say in last year's crime bill it was also a block grant for prevention. There was a community policing grant and a block grant for prevention, and the prevention grant didn't say Meeker had to have midnight basketball, it listed a whole range of prevention type programs, such as DARE, which Congressman McInnis likes, such as midnight basketball, such as any number of things that the community could use that money for. It puts a parameter around it, but it had to be for prevention programs that have been tested in different communities and worked.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman McInnis, what's your response to that?

REP. McINNIS: Well, you know, frankly, I think some of the allegations coming that way are hog wash. This last bill, the crime bill of '94, has not delivered. In your own piece this evening, you heard from the chief of police in Denver, who talks about the strings attached. You heard from an expert with the Colorado State Patrol that said maybe Colorado will get $500,000, they could have $60 million, but what are the chances of that ever occurring, almost non-existent. We can deliver this product. Sure, it's $2 1/2 billion less than last year's because frankly there was a lot of waste that was contained in last year's programs through some of the hug-a-thugs, through some of these other programs, that don't make sense. I think we have to be realistic, we have to be able to deliver the product, and the bill that we're proposing does that. And I might add that testimony given today by the administration points out very clearly there are a lot of parts of this bill, like the exclusionary section, like restitution being ordered upon the defendant, that make sense in this bill. So we've got across-the- aisle, bipartisan support, and it can work and Rep. Schroeder, you need to get on board because of the fact that it can work.

REP. SCHROEDER: Let me just say --

REP. McINNIS: You can help make it work.

REP. SCHROEDER: -- I sat in the hearings, and I think I know very much about what's in both of these bills, having lived through both of them. The reason that last year's bill hasn't taken effect yet is we paid for it out of the downsizing of the federal government with a trust fund, and that's how we agreed to do it, rather -- because we're trying to get the debt down. Now, I think if you go back and listen to what the police chief said, he said he was very happy to have those police, and yes, they have to contribute 25 percent, but let me tell you something. It was an incentive to get them out there in community policing, which my community liked, and they did it. And the -- and the comments made about will we get funding in the future, I think they're absolutely right. No, we won't, because this new block grant is a gimmick. It's a joke in which you put everything together and tied it to prisons, and it sinks the whole thing. So it really looks like something, but it really isn't. And I think that everybody ought to be perfectly aware that that's what we're doing. We're blowing up the prevention programs, and every police chief, everybody that has testified in front of our committee, says we need prevention programs. Prisons are driving everything so hard they never get an extra dime for prevention, and we know prevention works. The state of California just put a new study out that was in Time Magazine showing that if you looked at "three strikes and you're out," and they've been implementing that in their state, versus prevention, they found prevention was much more effective. And I just wish we'd start looking at hard facts, rather than dealing with our glands.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. I want to move on now to some specifics in the Republican bill. Congressman McInnis, let's start with the mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes or violent crimes that involve possession of a gun. The sentence, the mandatory minimum would be 10 years.

REP. McINNIS: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Why is it necessary?

REP. McINNIS: Well, what happened at last year's bill is that the administration went after possession of a firearm and not misuse of a firearm. I used to be a police officer, and I can tell you that the difficulties that I dealt with that people reported in were not as a result of law-abiding citizens. It was a result of people who don't, who disregard the law. What our bill does, is it says, hey, we're going to not after possession of a firearm, we're going to go after misuse of a firearm, and if you use a firearm and you carry it in, if you use it in the commission of a crime, if you discharge it, you're going to get an automatic penalty. That's how you impact at the misuse of weapons in this country, not by taking away Second Amendment rights or by restricting a person's right to protect themselves with a firearm.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Congresswoman Schroeder, what do you think about that?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, obviously, I am for much stronger penalties for anyone, anyone who uses weapons. I think that that really changes the whole scenario, and people can't defend against that. So I, I obviously am for anything that increases that. One of the big fears I have about this crime bill is whether somebody decides to start attaching amendments to it to undo the assault weapons end or to undo the Brady Bill. All of that would be germane, and all of that would be possible. And I think that would mean we're going in the wrong direction.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay, back to you, Congressman McInnis, on the exclusionary rule.

REP. McINNIS: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The good faith exemption.

REP. McINNIS: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Would you explain what it is, why you think it's necessary.

REP. McINNIS: Okay. Very simply, what the exclusionary rule says is that if an officer is found not to have probable cause when he stops a car, for example, any evidence that he gathers or secures as a result of that can be thrown out by the court. For example, the case that is well known is the case with a Pennsylvania car that was stopped in another state because they did not have a license plate on the front of the car. Technically, in Pennsylvania, you only have to have one license plate on your car, so the officer was improper on his stop of this car, but while he stopped the car, he observed in the back seat over 200 pounds of cocaine. The court threw out the evidence of the cocaine because the person driving the car was legal with one plate. What the exclusionary rule says, with a good faith exception, is hey, court, you may go ahead and admonish the officer for improperly stopping a car, but don't punish society by throwing out the criminal evidence of the drugs. And I think that certainly the administration's testimony today supported that. I would expect that Pat Schroeder would support it, and I certainly support that good faith exception. And, by the way, we do have that in place in the state of Colorado, and it works very, very well.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you support it, Ms. Schroeder?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, the administration does support it in that form. I think we want to be a little bit careful, and I think that's what they're saying too. You don't want to start violating, though, the illegal search and seizure that we're all protected from in the Bill of Rights. Obviously, you don't want to have the penalties so lessened that people can suddenly break into your home or break into your computers or break into your telephone lines or your car or anything else, and so we've got to find a balance, so that it is tough enough that people will still make every effort to make sure it is a proper search and seizure, or you'll have citizens screaming just as loud on the other side.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Congressman McInnis, very briefly on the deportation of criminal aliens, why are you, why is this in the bill, and then I'd like to hear Congressman Schroeder's response too.

REP. McINNIS: Well, there is some difficulty in deporting people who cause difficulties in this country who may not be citizens of this country. And I think that that needs to be looked at more on a case-to-case basis. I will say that in this bill this year it is the first time in this criminal debate that that issue has really been brought to the forefront and brought up to the House floor for an open debate. So I look forward to that, and I also look forward to seeing what kind of amendments are going to be made on that. But when you read the bill and the difficulties we have in dealing with international treaties and so on, we need to improve that gap, because it's an opening that's allowing some people to walk away from the crimes and the punishment they deserve.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Very briefly, Congresswoman.

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, obviously, we're going to discuss it. We're going to have to look at it. But that's the new fad this year. We've got to look for illegal aliens everywhere, and they're causing everything. I think we have to look at it case by case. I think we can't just draw any broad brush, or we'll end up making the same mistakes. We made it when we were too lax before.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you both very much for being with us. FOCUS - PUBLIC OR PRIVATE?

MR. LEHRER: Now the issue of federal funding for public broadcasting. It was the subject of the House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing today. Kwame Holman reports.

MR. HOLMAN: Judging from the comments of most of the members of Congress at today's hearing, continued funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting wouldn't be in question if these were times of fiscal abundance, but as subcommittee Chairman John Porter pointed out, these are not the best of times.

REP. JOHN PORTER, Chairman, Appropriations Subcommittee: We must get our deficits and our debt under control so that we do not continue to pass along a crushing debt burden to our children and grandchildren. Let everyone understand that there are no easy choices in our bill. We must choose among programs that educate our children, serve the health of the American people, and protect and train our country's workers. In effect,we must ask: Is public broadcasting a higher priority than pell grants, Head Start, the vaccine program, or worker retraining? Given the change in leadership in the House, we intend to examine every aspect of our budget.

MR. HOLMAN: Porter described himself as a supporter of the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, both of which receive about 14 percent of their funding from CPB. Democrat David Obey said he too was a supporter and measured the $285 million CPB gets from the government against other federal spending.

REP. DAVID OBEY, [D] Wisconsin: We spend $300 billion a week on highway assistance. We spend a billion dollars apiece for B-2 bombers, three times as much as is appropriated for this program. We spend $3 billion for new aircraft carriers, and so I would submit that we ought to ask the same questions about all programs when we're searching for ways to cut the federal budget.

MR. HOLMAN: Defending CPB at today's hearing was Corporation President Richard Carlson and Board Chairman Henry Cauthen, who also heads South Carolina Public Television. Both were asked how PBS might survive if federal funding were reduced or even eliminated.

RICHARD CARLSON, President, CPB: The federal government's funds make up about 14 percent of the total amount of money spent on public broadcasting in this country every year. The budget for all public radio and television is about a billion, eight hundred million dollars. And the 86 percent that was discussed this morning up here comes from states, it comes from local governments, or it comes from cities in licensing, it comes from corporations, and it comes from about 5 million Americans who contribute out of their pocket to their local radio and television stations. The federal contribution enables those stations to raise money from those other sources, and to many stations federal funds really make the crucial difference between whether they survive or whether they fail.

HENRY CAUTHEN, Board Chairman, CPB: It's the local stations in your own communities that you're talking about. You're not talking about what has been described as bloated bureaucracies in Washington. You're talking about what is going to happen to your own local community stations. And in my view, many of them are going to go off the air, and others will be tragically damaged if, if funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is zeroed out.

REP. DAN MILLER, [R] Florida: What kind of contingency plans do you have to move towards say a five-year game plan to, you know, cut that cord to the federal government of federal funding, because you're not going to go out of existence? Now, maybe some small stations are going to go out of existence, but they're going to still get it through the satellite or through the new telephone companies that are going into service. What would your plan be over a five-year period?

RICHARD CARLSON: I can't give you the specifics, Mr. Miller, but we are working on such a plan. I think you framed the question -- I had said this earlier about the survival of public broadcasting -- perfectly right. It is a question as to whether this is worth it to the elected representatives of the American people, the federal participation, I mean.

MR. HOLMAN: Louisiana's Bob Livingston, chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, said he was concerned that some local public stations have used their air time recently to lobby for continued federal funding.

REP. BOB LIVINGSTON, [R] Louisiana: In the last six or eight days, across the screen under Big Bird and Barney and all of the other wonderful programs on my local public broadcasting station, there's a tag line that says something to the effect, this program could go out of business, and if you don't want it to go out of business, if you want to save Big Bird, please call Bob Livingston at: 202-225-3015, or at his local offices: 504-589-2753, and let him know. I'm not sure, but I think a lawyer would take a look at what's happening and suggest that perhaps the law is being violated. Now is that an adequate or proper expenditure of taxpayers' funds?

RICHARD CARLSON: We have no control over that. As to the legality of it, if they don't use federal funds to do so -- and we certainly have stated clearly that they cannot use federal funds to do so - - then I would hesitate to make a judgment as to the legality of it.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, [D] California: I am pleased to hear that the chairman was pursuing the point of that lobbying, because I'm relieved to know that I'll no longer be called by representatives of the defense industry and the rest who profit so much from the largesse of the American taxpayer. And I think it will be news to them that they're not supposed to be, in light of the fundability of money, using any of that on their lobbying effort.

MR. HOLMAN: California's Nancy Pelosi said she supported continued federal funding for CPB. So did Nita Lowey of New York, who brought along two witnesses who she said were not called to testify.

REP. NITA LOWEY: Make no mistake about it, Mr. Chairman, this debate is about Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch and Barney and Kermit, and the new Republican majority has put them on the chopping block.

MR. HOLMAN: But Henry Bonilla of Texas wasn't to be outdone. He displayed a picture of Barney, PBS's popular purple dinosaur, and asked why PBS couldn't benefit from Barney's marketing success.

RICHARD CARLSON: Barney has been an enormous success on public broadcasting, and that means that has brought a lot of money into public broadcasting. The two points: We are reducing our financial commitment to Barney because of its profitability and ultimately in the next year or two that is erased, all of the funds will be recouped, and of course, Barney raises millions of dollars through its success to use other public television shows, including a new one that's called Wishbone, which is being done by the Barney producers, and it is an educational show, not entertainment shows per se. They employ educators and experts and so on to determine the story lines and the plot lines, and they benefit kids in a lot of ways that none of the cable shows do.

MR. HOLMAN: Several members of Congress asked to justify for and against continued federal funding for CPB.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, [R] California: Taking the federal funds out of this picture would not cause most of these stations to shut down, unless, of course, their product is totally out of sync with the tastes and the values and the desires of the American people who they are supposed to serve.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY, [D] Massachusetts: Now, if you want to put this incredible resource that we have, if we were going to have a plan, in fact, to ensure that every American child would have access to high quality information, this would be the plan, $1 per person per year, have one channel dedicated to getting high quality information into the minds of every child, that every mother, regardless of income, could have access to.

MR. HOLMAN: This afternoon, opponents of federal funding of public broadcasting came before the committee to argue that the government should get out of the broadcasting business and leave it to private companies. They were followed by a pro CPB group, who countered that the private sector would never provide the kind of programming available on public broadcasting. Several Democrats complained when they weren't allowed to question the panels, and the subcommittee adjourned, having reached no decision on CPB funding.

MR. LEHRER: The public broadcasting funding issue goes to the full House Appropriations Committee next month. FOCUS - NEW GROWTH?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next, the economic boom in Oregon, where a bitter feud over spotted owls between the logging industry and the federal government ended finally with a court victory for the government. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on what's happened since.

MIKE McANULTY: And what you do is just go up the file and open - -

LEE HOCHBERG, Oregon Public Broadcasting: For 21 years, Mike McAnulty ran machines and measured logs in an Oregon lumber mill.

MIKE McANULTY: Okay. Under file names, go ahead and highlight that. That should be your DOS data base.

MR. HOCHBERG: Today, he's more likely to see big trees on his computer screen than out in the Woods. McAnulty was laid off from his mill job two years ago and has retrained himself for a job in technical support at a Eugene, Oregon, software manufacturer.

PERSON ON PHONE: I very much appreciate your help.

MIKE McANULTY: All right, Horace. It should bring it right in with no problem.

PERSON ON PHONE: Thank you, sir.

MIKE McANULTY: You bet.

PERSON ON PHONE: Bye-bye.

MIKE McANULTY: Bye-bye.

MIKE McANULTY: I never thought I would ever be making a living talking on the phone. You didn't talk in the mill because it was noisy. You screamed once in a while if you wanted to communicate, but it wasn't like you had, you know, conversations.

MR. HOCHBERG: McAnulty could be a poster boy for the evolving Oregon economy, an economy based more on downloading software than downing trees. He made the difficult transition to the information economy.

MIKE McANULTY: It was hard to go out and look for that first job. I sweat blood. I had no interviewing experience. I was nerves, sweat, my face just sweating and stammering, and I'm proof. [laughing] I'm proof that you can do something different if you want to, or if you're forced to.

MR. HOCHBERG: It was only five years ago that timber workers halted traffic on Interstate 5 in the Northwest to protest cuts in the federally-mandated timber harvest. They said reductions in logging to protect the threatened spotted owl would turn the Northwest into Appalachia. Owls hung in effigy in timber town taverns. President Bush predicted every Northwest mill worker would lose his job.

GEORGE BUSH: [1992] It is time to make people more important than owls.

MR. HOCHBERG: But the Oregon economy today has never looked better, though the state has lost 15,000 jobs in the forest products industry in the last five years, its economy has generated 100,00 other jobs in the last year alone. The unemployment rate is at its lowest since the 1960's, about 5 percent. That's lower than most states in the country. Conservationist say Oregon is proving that environmental protection doesn't have to mean economic calamity.

ANDY KERR, Conservationist: All that was talked about was the economics of cutting down trees. There wasn't a discussion about the economics of those jobs and industries that are just dependent upon trees remaining standing, jobs in the commercial and sport fishing industries, the tourism and reaction industries, and indirectly damn near every other industry in the state who can attract quality workers because the environment is nice.

MR. HOCHBERG: High-tech, high-paying manufacturing units are springing up only miles from shut-down forests. A large Sony plant is rising in Springfield, a depressed timber town with several closed mills. It will manufacture compact discs and may employ 1500 people. Sony says Oregon's pristine environment helped lure it there.

THOMAS COASBILE, Sony Corporation: Outdoor sports, it really provides fishing, swimming, skiing, and also water skiing. Those issues are important. We're a company, we work hard, we need to play hard.

MR. HOCHBERG: It's the same story in Corvallis, where 4,500 employees are helping Hewlett-Packard meet exploding consumer demand for laser printers and laptop computers. High-tech will surpass timber as the state's leading source of jobs sometime this year for the first time.

BRAD ANGLE, Oregon Employment Department: That group of industry as a whole has added about 7,000 jobs since 1989. That's a significant number of highway jobs being created in the, in the Oregon state economy.

MR. HOCHBERG: The timber industry, itself, has saved some jobs by modernizing. Many Northwest sawmills shut down when the federal government placed old growth forests off limits to loggers, thus reducing the supply of big trees. But this mill retooled. It can now make wood veneer from smaller, younger trees.

UNIDENTIFIED SPOKESMAN: In the 60's and 70's, we used to use five, six-foot diameter logs to peel, and now we're peeling logs that are so doggone small, they used to be considered only good for, you know, say a stud mill.

MR. HOCHBERG: It seems a promising picture for Oregon. But the timber industry says the Beaver state still has rocky times ahead. It says retooled mills and high-tech jobs will only delay, not avert, a regional economic crisis.

CHRIS WEST, Timber Industry Spokesman: We haven't hit the wall yet on job losses and economic impacts to these communities.

MR. HOCHBERG: Industry spokesman Chris West says the state's timber supply and, in turn, its sawmill employment have been artificially inflated for the last few years, but that's about to end.

CHRIS WEST: We're not going to have the logs to run as many mills as we have in Oregon and Washington, and so people are going to lose their jobs.

MR. HOCHBERG: West cites two reasons: First, greater foreign demand for raw, unfinished logs will lead to more exports and take work away from local sawmills. Second, a recent burst of over- harvesting by private timber growers will eventually deplete log supplies. West says up to one hundred thousand timber jobs will be lost region-wide. And economists note that while thousands of new jobs are being created in Oregon, most are being filled by highly- educated college graduates, or highly-trained professionals moving to Oregon. Oregon's displaced timber workers often are left on the sideline.

BRAD ANGLE: These people just don't have what it takes. If Intel's developing a new plant in the Portland metropolitan area, they're requiring assembly workers with certain specific skills, one of which is undoubtedly not chain saw manipulation.

RUSS SEIBER, Laid-off Millworker: As far as working in an electronic assembly line, I just don't think I could do that. My hands are kind of beat up as it is, and I just -- I don't think that kind of work would be for me.

MR. HOCHBERG: Russ Seiber has been unable to get on the new economy's fast track. His rural town of Sweet Home, once home to six mills, now has only two. He was laid off after 27 years in a mill.

RUSS SEIBER: I had good manual dexterity but my finger dexterity, I'm almost 50 years ago, and it's just not like it used to be.

MR. HOCHBERG: Seiber has been brushing up on his math skills but fears he's unprepared for Oregon's new economy.

RUSS SEIBER: I was always weak in math. I never was really good at it. I'm lost. I really don't know. I'm doing everything that I've been trained to do. I try my best, but trying to get a job is, you know, there's only so much you can do.

BRYAN CORNELL, Forest Engineer: Timber is what made Oregon what it is today. There should always be a place for timber in Oregon. And we're being pushed out.

MR. HOCHBERG: Some Sweet Home timber workers say they already have the technical training to transition to the new economy, but they simply don't want to. Bryan Cornell is a college-educated forest engineer.

BRYAN CORNELL: We are high-tech. I run a machine that's completely fully computerized. These mills are fully computerized, laser sensors. Five men can run this sawmill. That's high-tech. We use it too, and I just don't think I should have to retrain.

MR. HOCHBERG: Dozens of Oregon timber towns have become pockets of poverty as timber workers struggle to adjust. In December, Sweet Home firefighters collected Christmas gifts for hundreds of neighbors unable to afford any.

MAN: I'm sure the kids will be very appreciative. Our Christmas kind of had a bad turn, so we're strivin' to get by as best we can.

MR. HOCHBERG: Thousands of timber workers do seem ready to change. Twenty-three hundred have enrolled in the nation's largest center for retraining woodworkers at Lane Community College in Springfield. Eldin Hillficker, laid off after 13 years in sawmills, figures his future is in electronics.

ELDIN HILLFICKER: You make the best of the situation that you're in. You know, sitting on the couch saying, well, to hell with it isn't going to get a person anywhere.

MR. HOCHBERG: 70 percent of the retrainees have landed new jobs, most in a field related to their retraining. Success rates are even higher, about 90 percent, when timber workers receive unemployment benefits in tandem with the schooling. Program administrator Ellen Palmer says extending benefits to all retrainees will ease the state's transition to a new economy.

ELLEN PALMER, Retraining Program Administrator: They need to have moneys available to help support them while they're in training. Those are important pieces if we really are looking a work force.

MR. HOCHBERG: For now, though, Oregonians are going to have to make due with what they've got. Those who've made the change, like Mike McAnulty, seem to know that while they can hang onto the clothing and memories of their past, there may be no choice but to embrace some part of Oregon's decidedly different future. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story this Thursday is the earthquake in Japan. More than 4,000 people have been killed, nearly 22,000 injured from Tuesday's quake. A new outbreak of fires is hampering efforts to find the 700 people still missing. Nearly 300,000 are living in temporary shelters. Much of the city of Kobe is without power and light -- and water. Good night, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good night, Jim. That's it for the NewsHour. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Good night.