The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, day twenty of the government shutdown. Kwame Holman updates. Margaret Warner talks to five freshman House members. The move to ban land mines, Elizabeth Farnsworth has a report and a debate. And new word on the warmth of the world, Charlayne Hunter- Gault de-briefs Paul Hoffman of "Discover Magazine." It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: There were no high level budget talks today, the 20th day of the partial government shutdown. A scheduled White House meeting between the President and Republican congressional leaders was cancelled. Republican budget chairman Pete Domenici and John Kasich did go to the White House to discuss the numbers with Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Later, Sen. Domenici said there was no real progress.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI, Chairman, Budget Committee: From the budget standpoint, there wasn't very much new that we did not already know. We were asked to go down and, and listen to a kind of a general presentation of where things are, where they might be, and we've been through almost all those scenarios more than one time, John and I have, and our staffs, and so we had a few questions, and we thanked 'em, and so we've accomplished what we were asked to do.

MR. LEHRER: Speaker Gingrich said House Republicans will meet tonight to discuss the budget talks. House members used a veto override debate as an opportunity today to vent their opinions on the causes and effects of the government shutdown.

REP. LINDSEY GRAHAM, [R] South Carolina: Mr. President, if you don't like our view of a balanced budget, give us your view. We can't negotiate against ourselves anymore. You have a legal and a moral obligation to fight us when you think we're wrong. You have a legal and moral obligation to fulfill your commitment you made 40 days ago to put the budget on the table that balances. Please fulfill your obligation.

REP. SAM FARR, [D] California: Congress is now in its fourth month. We voted--been here more days, taken more votes, and spent more hours on the floor, and accomplished less than any other Congress in history. Congress is unable to make the October 1st fiscal deadline. It's internationally embarrassing. Mr. Speaker, give us back our nation. Let your people go.

MR. LEHRER: The talks between the President and Republican leaders have been rescheduled for tomorrow. We'll have more on this budget story right after the News Summary. In Bosnia today, Serbs in a Sarajevo suburb released 16 civilians abducted over the last two weeks. We have more in this report from Judith Burns of Independent Television News.

JUDITH BURNS, ITN: Ten days of suspense are over. The family of one of the 16 civilians taken prisoner have just heard he's been set free. Adil Spahic, one of the first three to be released, went home this morning to a tearful welcome from his wife and family. On Christmas Day, he and two others were driving towards the Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza behind a NATO convoy when the Serb militia stopped their truck, forced them out, and beat them up. Earlier, they showed reporters their injuries and described how they were held in a toilet used as a makeshift prison cell. This afternoon, 12 more men and a woman were released. They had been held since before Christmas. They said they'd been treated well but their confidence in NATO's ability to keep the roads open and safe has been dented.

REPORTER: Will you travel along that road again, between Sarajevo and--

MAN: Again, no.

MS. BURNS: After a 10-day delay, the releases finally came after Washington last night appealed directly to the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic.

MR. LEHRER: Back in Washington today, White House Spokesman Mike McCurry said President Clinton will travel to Bosnia to visit U.S. troops sometime in the next three weeks. The Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations called today for a worldwide ban on the use and production of land mines. A spokesman said more than 2,000 people are killed annually by land mines around the world. The first and thus far only U.S. casualty in Bosnia was caused by one last week. We'll have more about these weapons of war later in the program. Sec. of Defense Perry was in Ukraine today. He talked to the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministers about arms reduction. Ukrainian Defense Minister Shmarov told Perry the former Soviet republic plans to eliminate its nuclear arsenal by Spring. Tomorrow, Perry, Shmarov, and Russian Defense Minister Grachev will take part in a demolition ceremony at an old nuclear weapons silo in Ukraine. Back in this country, Sec. of State Christopher joined the Israeli-Syrian peace talks outside Washington. The meetings are now in their second week. The major issue remains serious demand that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights. Israel took that territory from Syria during the 1967 war. The travel expenses of the Sec. of Energy were the subject of a House hearing today. Congressional auditors presented a report on two of Hazel O'Leary's sixteen business trips abroad. It said visits to India and South Africa cost more than a million dollars and O'Leary could not account for the spending of two hundred and twenty-five thousand of those dollars. Two members of the House Commerce Subcommittee expressed opposing views of the Secretary's activities.

REP. MARTIN HOKE, [R] Ohio: Up until now, most of the media focus has been on Sec. Hazel O'Leary's lavish and excessive travel, which in itself is a serious problem; however, that is just the tip of a mismanagement iceberg that masks the larger problem of profound energy agency chaos, with tens of millions of dollars lost--in lost computers and other property, hundreds of thousand of dollars of travel money accounted for.

REP. ELIZABETH FURSE, [D] Oregon: I also find it very ironic that we are here today investigating the Secretary's decision to undertake trade missions on behalf of the United States. Shouldn't the Secretary be promoting U.S. technologies, enhancing exports, assisting American companies in securing business contracts overseas? Isn't that, indeed, her job? Isn't that, indeed, the government's job?

MR. LEHRER: O'Leary has also defended her trips. She said they have generated millions of dollars in business for U.S. companies, and an O'Leary aide said the Secretary's foreign travel was approved by the State Department, as required by government regulations. In another energy story today, General Motors announced the mass marketing of electric cars. It will be the first of the big three domestic automakers to do so. GM Chairman Jack Smith said the zero emission EV-1 car will be available in California and Arizona this fall. In environmental news today, a group of British scientists declared 1995 the warmest year ever recorded. They said the Earth's average temperature last year was just under 59 degrees. They based it on data from one thousand weather stations. Global temperatures were first recorded in 1860. We'll have more on this story later in the program, but first it's on to the budget debate, five freshmen views, and the threat of land mines. FOCUS - SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN

MR. LEHRER: This was day 20 of the partial shutdown of the government of the most powerful nation on Earth. Our coverage again begins with a round-up by Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: The 20th day of the partial government shutdown came and went with Congress doing very little about it.

SPOKESMAN: On this vote, the yeahs are 239; the nays are 177; 2/3 not having voted in the affirmative, the bill is rejected.

MR. HOLMAN: The only action in the House was its failure to override the President's veto of the Interior Department Appropriations Bill, assuring that some 133,000 federal workers-- half the furloughed work force--won't be returning to work soon. The debate was predictably partisan.

REP. BOB LIVINGSTON, Chairman, Appropriations Committee: The problem that we have is this was, indeed, a carefully crafted piece of legislation that met demands from liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the capital, and despite the fact that it was retuned on many occasions when it went to the President, he vetoed it. Let me underscore that. He vetoed this bill, and the parks, the museums, and all of the other good effects of this bill have been disregarded for the Christmas holidays.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY, [D] Massachusetts: The parks are closed down for one very simple reason. The Republicans have yet to receive their crown jewel in the Contract with America, which is a $245 billion tax break for the rich in America! And you guys are holding up the whole federal government in order to get that! And whether it be the parks or Medicare or student loans, you're going to hold your breath until you get that $245 billion to fulfill your contract with a country club in America! But don't lay off the closing of the federal parks on Bill Clinton!

MR. HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Democratic leaders determined to pin the blame for the shutdown on the Republicans invited the head of the Small Business Administration to Capitol Hill to give his view of the shutdown.

PHILIP LADER, Small Business Administration: About 260 small business loans each day are not being closed right now, because we operate today as a public/private partnership with 7,000 banks making these loans with a partial government guarantee. That's $40 million a day of private capital, private capital, not being extended to small businesses because of the shutdown of the SBA.

MR. HOLMAN: And a Washington, D.C. dry cleaner whose clientele is made up largely of government workers pleaded for an end to the shutdown.

MI RUDENACKER, Businesswoman: These days since the government has shut down, I don't have no business. I have to pay the rent. I have to pay my employees. These days the suffering is tremendously. Please open the government. I don't care who's at fault, who's wrong. Please open the government and let us pay--work and pay the tax.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Minority Leader: It is unthinkable for this majority in the Congress--and now it's just in the House, not in the Senate, the majority in the Senate has sent over a clean continuing resolution, so it is just the majority in the House that is impeding progress on getting this government running again.

MR. HOLMAN: But on the floor of the Senate, Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici said House Republicans don't deserve the entire blame.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI, Chairman, Budget Committee: At least it is a two-way street from here to Pennsylvania Avenue. And when Presidents veto bills that fund government, they take a bit of the responsibility of what will happen if Congress chooses not to fund some of those.

MR. HOLMAN: But there was late word that action to end the shutdown could come tonight.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Well, I think we'll have a conference this evening of all the House Republican members, and at that time after the conference, when the members get a full chance to participate, we'll have a press briefing.

MR. HOLMAN: The Speaker, reportedly, will offer his colleagues a plan that would allow furloughed federal workers to return to work with pay, but without funds for full government operations.

MR. LEHRER: Now, this budget impasse as seen from the congressional trenches and to Margaret Warner.

MS. WARNER: We're joined now by five freshman members of Congress, four of whom have been with us periodically during this session. The fifth is newly-elected Congressman Tom Campbell of California. He joins fellow Republicans George Nethercutt of Washington State and Zach Wamp of Tennessee, plus two Democrats, Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania and Zoe Lofgren of California. Welcome back all of you. Welcome, Congressman Campbell. Zach Wamp, let me start with you. Yesterday, the President came out of a cabinet meeting, and he quoted the Secretary of State as saying that the national security and international reputation of this country was being damaged, and he quoted the Secretary saying, this is no way for a great nation to behave. Does the Secretary have a point at all, as you see it?

REP. ZACH WAMP, [R] Tennessee: No way for a great nation to behave is to spend $5 trillion more than we had since 1969, continue at this pace recklessly, leaving our children with a collapsed economy, and a nation that doesn't enjoy the freedoms-- we will actually become the first generation in the history of this country to leave this place in worse shape than we found it. That is tragic. This debate is the most important debate in the last 60 years in this country, and it's not over a few people. It's over 260 million people and whether or not we're going to have a future. So it's very important. I hope there's a way we can come together tonight or tomorrow and let these people go back to work without sacrificing the principles of a real balanced budget agreement.

MS. WARNER: Do you agree, Zoe Lofgren, that this is the most important debate of the last 60 years in Congress?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN, [D] California: Well, I think shutting the government down has very little to do with the overall debate on a seven-year balanced budget plan. I agree that a plan to balance the budget over seven years, or if it were ten is what I'd advocate for, but we've agreed on seven as important. But the government closure, it's a leverage deal, and Gingrich has mentioned that. They, they want to keep the government shut down and the country hostage to somehow leverage the President, or I don't know who else. It's unnecessary. I don't believe it's responsible. I think we should stop that right now just as Sen. Dole as suggested, and really, the only one who's holding out, I think, is the Speaker. The President wants to put people back to work. The Senate Republicans, the Senate Democrats, the House Democrats, we should do that right away, and we do, yes, they need to work on a very complicated and very important multi-year budget plan, and I agree it's important, but we shouldn't be punishing innocent people needlessly while we do that important job.

MS. WARNER: What would the Republicans give up in these bigger budget negotiations if you did vote for a clean continuing resolution to reopen the government?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT, [R] Washington: We've said repeatedly that if the President would put forward a balanced budget that he'd committed to on November 20th that is scored and certified by the Congressional Budget Office, we'll talk about any kind of concessions that he would desire that we talk about. We've been unable to get him to do that, and I think we're wanting the President to show some leadership to be true to his commitments like we have been as we talked about balancing this federal budget for the last ten or eleven months. We're anxious for some response from the President that is responsible, and we haven't gotten it.

MS. WARNER: But what, going to Zoe Lofgren's point about leverage, what do you fear you would give up if you went ahead and reopened, let the government reopen and then went into these more substantive talks, or continued these more substantive talks?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: We've been through that already. We did that on November 20th, and we said, let's talk between November 20th and November December 15th, and we'll give you, Mr. President, and everybody a clean continuing resolution. It's been fruitless. Now, the President hasn't engaged himself at all. And I think there's a lack of trust on our side of the commitments, or lack of commitments, that the President's willing or unwilling to give, as the case may be. You know, I'd like to see us think about and perhaps propose a continuing resolution that would become effective as of the date that the President fulfills his commitment to put a balanced budget, scored by CBO over seven years, on the table. He's not willing to do that, and we can't figure out why. He seems to want to continue to veto spending bills that would allow these federal workers to go back to work, and, you know, it's a puzzle to us, it's uncertain to us why he is denying his prior commitment and not doing what he said he would do. I think our main concern is that our conclusion that we can reach is he doesn't want to balance the federal budget. He wants to spend us and continue to spend us into oblivion, and that's wrong.

MS. WARNER: Let me get Chaka Fattah to respond on that point, because over and over again, this is what the Republican freshmen are saying, if only the President will put this seven year balanced budget on the table scored by CBO. Why won't the President just get that out of the way, just do that?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH, [D] Pennsylvania: Well, I think that--first of all, all of us are lucky to get 100,000 votes or so to get elected to Congress. The President got 45 million votes of Americans on a set of issues that he deeply believes in. He's agreed that he will negotiate with the Congress around a budget, but the Congress has a constitutional responsibility to pass a budget. And if they can't get the President's signature, then you have the opportunity to override the President's veto by 2/3 votes. Let's look at the facts. Thirteen appropriation bills. The President has accepted seven of them. He's vetoed three of them and three the Congress have not even been able to pass to send over to him. This is not a President unwilling to work with the Congress. What we have is even in the case of the three vetoes, the Congress, itself, the House has sustained the President's veto on two of those occasions. So what we have is a House majority that can't get its way, and it's acting, I think, and I don't mean this as derogatory to my friends here, but in an immature way, and as it relates to these federal employees and others who have been harmed in an immoral way.

MS. WARNER: So do you agree, Zoe Lofgren, do you support the President's refusal thus far to put that kind of a balanced budget proposal on the table?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I think he has been working pretty hard with the leaders, Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich, and I was lucky. I was surprised that I got invited in for a series of meetings two weeks ago, and these are complex issues, to say that, you know, we can just do it in an hour is not the case. There are very fundamental issues that need to be worked through. One that's very important today and very important to the President from what he's said is the individual guarantee on Medicaid that is the safety net for millions of Americans and primarily senior citizens in nursing homes that's repealed.

MS. WARNER: I don't mean to interrupt you, but we're talking here about the shutdown and just what it would take to get over that hurdle, so all these big issues can be addressed. What these Republicans are saying is, just put something down on the table. Are you saying then the President would give up too much by doing that?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: You know, I don't know what the President's thinking is tonight, but as our colleague, Elizabeth Furse, pointed out in the floor this afternoon, there was a Democratic alternative to balance the budget using CBO numbers in seven years. I didn't vote for it at the time, but there have been some refinements since that time. Some Democrats have asked that that be allowed to be brought to the floor, and the Speaker won't let it happen. So I think, although I'm sure that my freshman colleagues here are sincere in what they're saying, there's a lot of political gamesmanship going on in the Speaker's office from what I could tell.

MS. WARNER: Well, Tom Campbell, you're new to this, or you've returned all this. How does the Republican strategy here strike you? Do you think that the Republican leadership is handling this in the right way?

REP. TOM CAMPBELL, [R] California: Generally, yes. Let me say that's for two reasons. First of all, in November, the President made a promise, and that was that he would participate in the budget negotiations by putting forward a proposal that would meet the criteria that we've all talked about tonight, and the Republican leadership has said where's your offer, and it's all very well to say that there are Democratic offers in the House and Senate, and indeed, I think they're constructive, I really do, but they are not on the table because the President hasn't met the obligation that he, himself, said he would as of last November. The second reason why I think the leadership is generally on the right path, and, again, this points at refinement, is the business-as- usual notion of a continuing resolution--and here, let me just emphasize that it wasn't from my previous time in Congress but from the time I spent in the Reagan administration--I think it's fair to be open to criticism of our own Presidents as well as of Democratic Presidents, and obviously the budget deficit grew in the Reagan years. One of the reasons is we had continuing resolutions. It is a way to postpone the difficult choice. And, as you might remember, in the Reagan years, there was an increase in defense spending and an increase in social spending. There wasn't an increase in revenues, and the deficit grew. So on those two counts to ask the President to comply with what he said he would do as of November and to put an end to the continued business as usual, I think the leadership is on the right track.

MS. WARNER: Zack Wamp, let's go to this question about whether there's a moderate solution here, Zoe Lofgren just referred to, and Jim Lehrer spent a couple of interesting discussions in the last couple of weeks with moderates. It seems there's real common ground here, but as, as your colleague here just pointed out, Speaker Gingrich will not let those sort of centrist proposals even come to the floor. Why not?

REP. ZACH WAMP: Well, I believe with all my heart that the President's hovering around 50 percent in the polls and he's trying to get reelected this fall, and so he is saying as soon as I declare that this is my number on Medicare and this is my number on welfare, and this is my number on Medicaid, that his polls are going to drop, because we actually had the courage to announce what the numbers were and pass the bills that would support the budget and actually the Speaker's numbers dropped, and we've suffered a little bit politically by just going on out there and saying, this is what you have to do to balance the budget, country. The President won't do that. If the President would declare his numbers, I would vote tomorrow for a continuing resolution. I think my colleagues would vote tomorrow, and then we could begin real serious discussions. He's found it in his own political best interest not to declare how he would balance the budget, and that's really at the heart of this problem, if he would just come to the table. Now, you might have a congressional-driven solution where a bunch of people come together and come up with some new numbers, but if it's going to be vetoed by a President playing politics to get reelected next November, we're going to be right back to the veto override problem.

MS. WARNER: All right. Well, let me ask you all about something that George Nethercutt just raised. What if in the meeting tonight the discussion was whether to endorse something that would be a continuing resolution that would take effect when and if the President puts this proposal down, would you vote for that?

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: I think I would.

MS. WARNER: Tom Campbell, would you?

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: I'd look at the circumstances, but that would be the right direction.

REP. ZACH WAMP: If he gives us the numbers on the specific items of how he'd balance the budget--

MS. WARNER: But he's saying in advance that you would pass something like this with a so-called trigger that would say it would become operative when and if the President did this.

REP. ZACH WAMP: I want to see the President's numbers on how he would balance the budget before I'll agree to a continuing resolution.

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: I think the issue here that we have to examine is Bob Dole, who by every poll is the leading Republican voice in our country, and President Clinton, who obviously is the leading Democratic figure, they both agree that we should open the government up, that these separate discussions on the budget can continue. Everybody who's participated in those discussions said they've been meaningful over the last couple of weeks, but that this issue of opening the government up, people being paid for not working or people being forced to work and not being paid is an issue that only the Gingrich House Republicans seem to think is a wise course of action for our country.

MS. WARNER: Let me get them to respond to this. What about this split, George Nethercutt, between now Majority Leader Dole and Speaker Gingrich, how do you explain that, what's going on?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: I don't think there's really a split.

MS. WARNER: Well, there is a very different--difference in tactics on this issue, is there not?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: I understand. I think Sen. Dole saw a stalemate existing and offered an alternative, and there's nothing wrong with that. To the extent that the House doesn't agree, that's fine, I don't agree either. I mean, I like to see us make sure that the President has some accountability in all of this, and so I think that's why Sen. Dole's proposal is wanting. But that isn't to say that Sen. Dole doesn't want a balanced budget or isn't very committed to precisely the same objectives that we in the House are. But I've listened carefully to the discussion here and your questions to my Democrat friends; they didn't answer the question. Why won't the President put a balanced budget on the table? He has not ever in his presidential life put any balanced budget anywhere.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Maybe we can solve it right here on this show, because as you know, I'm a little bit under the weather here today, but as I was listening, you know, for too long, I've had the impression that the Republican House members have said, you know, it's got to be to our budget or the government's shut down forever, and we'll default on the debt, or whatever. Now, what I'm hearing you say is that, and maybe you Zach, is if the President puts out a seven-year, CBO-scored balanced budget, that solves it. If you agree to vote for whatever he puts down, provided it's CBO-balanced and in seven years, that's basically what you're asking him to do, I think that's a deal and we have a close right now.

REP. ZACH WAMP: Let the folks go back to work while we're negotiating the numbers.

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: You can't vote--you can't vote in general before you see the specifics, but what we can do--and this is in direct response to Zoe's suggestion--take the Democratic proposal and if the President would make it his, then it's on the discussion table, and then we're not negotiating against a phantom. Presently, it's negotiating against a phantom because we don't know what the- -

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: The problem is that you're shutting down the government.

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: --President--

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: The problem here is that the Constitution--

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: Why won't the President put your--

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: --the Constitution of the United States--

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: --Democratic budget on the table?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: --gives the responsibility for passing a budget to the Congress. Then you keep wanting to kick the football over to the White House. But it's our burden--let me finish that- -it's our burden to pass a budget and to run the government, and what we're doing now to hundreds of thousands of employees of the federal government who are not being paid, okay, for work that we're requiring that they do, or conversely are being told that they can't work and that they will eventually be paid doesn't make any sense as part of this bigger issue. And it only makes sense to the House Republicans among everybody in the discussion which should require a look in the mirror and say, wait a minute, maybe I happen to be wrong just on this one point.

MS. WARNER: Let me--

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: As you know, Tom, as a law professor that the remedy in the Constitution when there's a veto is a veto override, not shutting the government down for a year.

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: Since my law professor credentials have been brought up, if the budget resolution is law, it is because the President has signed a bill by Congress. Both are responsible, so- -

MS. WARNER: All right, ladies and gentlemen, let me ask one other subject. You all ended the first session of the 104th Congress yesterday and immediately began your second one. Zach Wamp, how do you feel about this first session? I'm sure that you've read the critiques that have said, you know, this may be a revolution but this Congress has passed fewer actual laws than any Congress since the end of World War II. Are you disappointed?

REP. ZACH WAMP: We shifted the center of gravity in American politics. We are beginning to turn this big ship of state slightly back in the right direction. The founding fathers want it to be extremely difficult to do that, but if you change it one degree, you alter the course of American history. That's what we've begun to do in one year.

MS. WARNER: Do you feel the same way?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: Certainly, and I think you have to look back at where we were two years ago in this country and debating the issues. We were not talking about reforming and preserving the Medicare system. We were not talking about balancing the budget. We were talking about reducing the deficit to something way above zero. We changed the focus, and I think, more importantly, the House of Representatives has been the leader and filled the vacuum of leadership that lacks, that is lacking in the White House, which is unusual in past history.

MS. WARNER: What about the two of you, Chaka Fattah, what's it been like to be a freshman in the minority?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: Well, first of all, I've been in the minority all of my life in this country, so I'm comfortable with that status, but I think that the Congress, you know, we have been very hard working, but we've not been very productive. And even on the issues that we're focused on, I don't they're the central questions for our nation. In terms of the issues around raising the wages of working families in this country, not what we do about Medicare or Medicaid, but what do we do about the 40 million Americans who don't have any health insurance in places like Tennessee and Washington State and in Pennsylvania, what are we going to do, and we haven't even begun to deal with those issues about what we do about educational equality and opportunity, so I think that, I've said before that I hope we get past some of this partisan bickering and we get to some of the big issues that really will alter the course of American history.

MS. WARNER: How satisfying has it been for you?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: I remember, there's a guy I went to college with who had a great phrase. He said, there's been a lot more--when all is said and done, there's been a lot more said than done. We only have passed 88 bills, and that includes such measures as the Romano-Mazoli federal building and the Ronald Reagan--I mean, there's been very little actually made into law, and I, you know, I've done my best to provide a productive role. I think I've made a difference in the Internet access for schools, which is probably the one thing I can point to where I know I made a difference for kids that will help this country, but the frustration I have is I came here to change things, the way they were. I didn't come here just to keep things the way they are. And instead of having an opportunity reform things and streamline things, I've faced kind of let's abolish everything and which was, I don't think it's right for the country. What I want to do is talk about kids and families of this country, is why I ran here. What are we going to do to focus on our attention on the future, on education, on children, their well-being and what that's going to mean for our country, and there's been nothing of that, nothing.

MS. WARNER: Tom Campbell, as we see many Senators leaving in apparent frustration and you hear some of the frustrations at this table, you're the newcomer, is it what you thought it might be like? Is it--

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: It's different from what it was before, and to that degree, it's a change. For most, the better, and here's why I say that. If we didn't focus on the debt that we pile up upon our children, we wouldn't be fair to them, as much as if we didn't focus on education that my friend and colleague, Zoe Lofgren, pointed out, and in my time in Congress before, '88 to 92, the President of my party was in charge of the country, and we weren't focusing upon reducing the deficit. The talk was about possibly reducing the rate of growth of the deficit. Well, for the first time, we're now talking about our children and grandchildren not inheriting a burden of debt, and Medicare would be another example. We're trying to put it in shape so that it will be there for the next generation. That is cataclysmically better than where we were when I served before.

MS. WARNER: Well, thank you very much, all of you. And I'm sure we'll see you back again.

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: Happy New Year!

MS. WARNER: Happy New Year.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: We hope.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, land mines and a warming world. FOCUS - HAZARDOUS TERRAIN

MR. LEHRER: Now, the unseen but widespread weapon of war, land mines. They are high among the risks now facing U.S. troops in Bosnia. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the story.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Army Corporal Martin John Begash became the first American casualty in Bosnia when he took a wrong turn in his Humvee and hit a land mine. Experts had predicted just such an event. An estimated three to six million land mines were set during the three and a half year war, representing one of the greatest threats to the NATO-led peacekeeping mission. The threat has been considered so serious that every American soldier headed for Bosnia goes through mine awareness training first. As the U.S. troops were deploying to Bosnia, retired Marine General Bernard Trainor, appearing on the NewsHour, noted the danger.

LT. GEN. BERNARD TRAINOR, U.S. Marine Corps [Ret.]: [December 21, 1995] The troops have all been trained in mine clearance, and if you're careful, the mines are not everywhere. They are in locations where fighting normally has taken place, so you're prudent as to where you go. You stay on well worn paths. You make sure that their civilians have walked down there and stay away from areas where you see destroyed vehicles or dead animals.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Bosnia is not the only country where a misstep can mean a lost limb or life. An estimated 100 million mines lie in wait in 62 countries and some 2000 people are maimed or killed by a land mine each month. Besides Bosnia and Croatia, at the top of the land mine list are Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia. The reason for such proliferation is simple: Land mines are inexpensive. At about $3 apiece, they are the cheapest way for poorly-financed armies and militias to fight a war. Getting rid of them is not cheap. According to the United Nations, 80,000 mines were removed last year at a cost of $300 to $1,000 apiece. In the same time period, some 2.5 million more mines were planted. The human cost is enormous. Here in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge and government troops riddled the country with mines during a long civil war. One out of every two hundred and thirty-six people here has been wounded by a mine.

SPOKESMAN: If you move off a hard surface, a hard-formed road, you must assume that the area is mined.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mine removal has gone slowly. Most of the mines here are Chinese-made, and they contain few metal parts. They're very difficult to detect and remove. It is painstaking work as these U.N. peacekeepers learned in a training session three years ago.

SPOKESMAN: The price for rushing the job is the loss of a limb or death.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In Cambodia, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation runs a prosthetic clinic for mine victims. And in the United States, the foundation has joined other non-governmental organizations in a vigorous campaign to ban anti-personnel mines altogether. The United States adopted a temporary moratorium on exporting land mines three years ago. Twenty-seven countries, including Belgium, Italy, and Russia, all major exporters, have followed suit. Last Fall, the U.N. General Assembly unanimously agreed on a non-binding resolution calling for the eventual eradication of anti-personnel mines. And now the U.S. Congress has passed legislation sponsored by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy which imposes a one-year moratorium on the use of land mines by the American military. The Clinton administration wants a more gradual and limited approach and expressed its views again today at a land mine forum sponsored by the American Red Cross.

THOMAS McNAMARA, Assistant Secretary of State: Total ban seems not to be workable. A measured approach that will get the crisis under control and then lead to eventual elimination of land mines is, I think, a possibility, and that is where the President now stands. That is where this administration stands, including the Pentagon, that we are for a very tight, very restricted use of land mines, controls, elimination of, of the most dangerous land mines, and eventually getting to the point where land mines can be eliminated.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But the administration has not definitively said whether the President will veto legislation including a mine moratorium.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We are joined now by the sponsor of the land mine moratorium bill, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, and by William Taylor, senior vice president for international security affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a retired army colonel who served in Korea, Vietnam, and Germany. Thank you both for being with us. Sen. Leahy, what is in your legislation? I understand it's not a ban; it's a moratorium.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, [D] Vermont: I've had two different kinds of legislation. The one that has now been passed by both the House and the Senate and is in a conference report waiting to be finished and signed by the President would say that we would continue our moratoriums on exporting land mines, but three years from now, for one year, we would not use them ourselves, a limited type of anti- personnel land mines. And the reason that is in there--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Excuse me for interrupting--within three years we would not use land mines almost anywhere but in certain places we would be allowed under your legislation to use them, right?

SEN. LEAHY: We would not be allowed to use these indiscriminate anti-personnel land mines, the kind if you were walking on the field and you step on it, you've lost your leg. We could use anti- tank mines, which are different. We could use mines along a recognized national border, as Finland does along the Finnish/Russian border. But the United States would, in effect, say we are going to declare a halt for one year. It has a number of other things in the legislation to encourage us to work with other countries to join us in this. Even using my first moratorium, which we passed, which is a moratorium on the export, we found a whole lot of countries who weren't even talking about this issue before have now joined us. We have--19 countries support the immediate ban on the use, production, or export of land mines. Twenty-seven other countries joined in an export moratorium. Some countries, like Brussels, are outlawing the use and destroying theirstocks. It is something in the last few years suddenly there is this international movement. The United States, I'm sorry to say, even though we passed my legislation here, the United States has not been as much in the forefront of this movement as it should be.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. William Taylor, what would be wrong with passing this, this, or with legislation which would temporarily declare a moratorium on the U.S. use of land mines? We'll go to the export issue in a minute.

COL. WILLIAM TAYLOR, U.S. Army [Ret.]: Sure.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let's just talk about the legislation currently going to the President.

COL. TAYLOR: Let me just preface what I want to say by the comment that nobody can disagree with what Sen. Leahy says about the horrors of land mines, especially when it comes to indiscriminate killing of innocents. But beyond that, land mines by military people have a legitimate use when used properly, and you use the right kinds of mines. The United States manufactures high-tech mines, the best in the world, self-destruct mines, and even if they don't self-destruct, when the batteries go bad, they go inert. These are the kinds of mines that have legitimate uses when employed properly in mine fields that are marked. For example, in Korea, it says in English, "Mine Field, Danger." It says in Korean, "Mine Field, Danger." If a civilian can read, they're not going to go into that mine field. I'll tell you this. Under this legislation, I would hate to be a colonel commanding a regiment three years from now when I'm prohibited from using land mines.

SEN. LEAHY: Could I--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yes. Just a minute. But just briefly, describe the ways that you might use those mines in actual combat.

COL. TAYLOR: Sure. In a night defensive perimeter, even though Sen. Leahy's bill does not outlaw Claymore mines, which have a very short range, very short, you're talking about a couple of hundred meters, of feet, I mean, and they're very effective there, I want to be able to stop somebody trying to get at my men and women in my night defensive perimeter way out there beyond light mortar range. A light mortar, 60 millimeters, can be carried by one person, a few rounds, and they can pump those things right into my men and women. I don't want that. Mines are effective. The right kinds of mines properly marked, properly laid out, where we will pick them up afterwards--we use mine field diagrams--that's what I'm talking about, and many other uses.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Sen. Leahy.

SEN. LEAHY: Well, you know, this sounds great. I mean, but this is like saying that every weapon has a use. I mean, I could make an argument for various kinds of chemical and biological weapons that we could use that would also attack those people out in that perimeter, but we've banned those. I could make an argument for dum-dum bullets. We've banned those. Just because we have the weapon doesn't mean it makes that much sense. Now, what--

MS. FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry--

SEN. LEAHY: --the colonel--the colonel has said that he'd want to make sure he had those if he was leading his people into combat. I think somebody ought to ask some of the colonels who have our peacekeepers in Bosnia and ask them don't they wish there had been a ban on the use of anti-personnel land mines, because the greatest danger our men and women face right now is not somebody marching on them but it's the land mines that are there. There is also a question of what kind of leadership the United States can use. There are 26,000 casualties every year. That's 72 every single day. Most of those are not military people. They are civilians. And this is the only weapon where, somebody said at the conference today, where the victim triggers the weapon that attacks him or her. We have--you know, we're the most powerful nation on Earth. We had everything from night vision to all other kinds of methods, that we ought to be able to defend ourselves, to say that we must have land mines to do it, and that the United States would stand, stopping this worldwide movement toward banning land mines makes no sense at all because we are the ones that face them when we go on the humanitarian missions, uh, military peacekeeping missions like Bosnia, and on and on.

MS. FARNSWORTH: How--

SEN. LEAHY: 30 percent of our casualties in Vietnam were from land mines.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What would yo do about it, Mr. Taylor?

COL. TAYLOR: First of all--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let me just say the International Committee for the Red Cross says that land mines are increasingly used, especially in, in civil wars essentially or unconventional warfare, in not only defensive but very offensive ways to surround villages completely, to make people terrified. What would you do about that?

COL. TAYLOR: Well, first, I wouldn't let Sen. Leahy get away with a false analogy when we talk about Bosnia. The kinds of mines that are in Bosnia, laid by all the formerly warring parties, are the dirty mines, the ones made by Russians, by Chinese, by North Koreans. They're the ones that should be banned.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So you would ban some mines?

COL. TAYLOR: Absolutely.

MS. FARNSWORTH: You make a distinction between good and bad. I mean, just on that point, then I'll come back to you.

SEN. LEAHY: Are you going to do that? Are we going to ban 'em by saying, here, don't use yours, just buy ours? We'd get laughed out of the international conference that way.

MS. FARNSWORTH: You don't make the distinction between certain mines that are not as bad as other mines, you think?

SEN. LEAHY: I would allow the use of anti-tank mines, I would allow the use of Claymore mines. I would not allow the use of, of anti-personnel mines that are triggered by somebody stepping on them.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

COL. TAYLOR: Second, I think the administration has--and the Department of Defense--Department of State, going to Geneva for the next negotiations on these issues has already seized the high ground, and they--they're going with the proposal that says the kinds of mines that, that I'm talking about that dirty, low-tech cheap mines should be banned. It then has a provision that says all those nations that have laid those many millions of mines that Sen. Leahy and others are so worried about have a responsibility to go out and pick 'em up. They put them down. In fact, if they need training in how to do it, we ought to come up with some kind of economic assistance to help train them in getting those mines up, but don't take away a military capability that's legitimate. And it's not just land mines. There are groups trying to take other weapon systems that are legitimate away from the military leaders, our men and women that the Congress sends into combat, like low energy lasers. Those arguments are false too. So let's get it straight on what we're banning, and do the right thing.

SEN. LEAHY: Let's--let's be straight in what we're talking about too. I mean, this is not some pie in the sky idea. Two thirds of the U.S. Senate, ranging from the most conservative to the most liberal, voted for this, knowing exactly what it was, notwithstanding strong lobbying by the Pentagon against it, the Republicans and Democrats alike. You're having every organization, the International Red Cross to the number of military in other countries and the Pope, there's one thing that unifies them in, in doing away with it, but the idea that we can--I mean, I can't think of anything more naive to say, well, we'll go to Geneva, sit around in these $400 a day hotel rooms, have great meals, and say, yes, we're going to agree, countries that put 'em down must take 'em out. There are 100 million, 100 million unexploded land mines in sixty-some-odd countries. Who's going to come and take them out, is the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, going to go into Afghanistan, pick them up, who's going to pick them up the 8 million in Cambodia and get rid of them? It's not going to happen. That door, that's over with. What we have to say is that there's not a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on land mines that primarily damaged children, non-combatants, the way you ban them is to ban them. And we've had these same arguments in chemical weapons, in dum-dum bullets, in mustard gas, and on and on. Agent Orange is a weapon, and I could make an argument for it, but should we use it?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Are land mines different from those weapons?

COL. TAYLOR: They sure are, but the line of argument you just heard says we can't pick up all those millions of mines that are out there. Are we going to buy that? We can do something about those and can we get the countries that laid them down to pick them up? You're darn right we can.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Even though--

COL. TAYLOR: How? Economic sanctions.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --it's so expensive--costly--

COL. TAYLOR: Economic sanctions. That's how you do it.

SEN. LEAHY: What kind of economic sanctions do you put against Cambodia to pick 'em up? Who's going to pick them up, up in Cambodia? What kind of sanctions do you put against Afghanistan, or anybody else to pick them up? Who's going to pick them up? Should we be helping to, of course, and I would also say a vast majority of members of Congress had voted for my legislation to provide money to countries. But it's a drop in the bucket. Kuwait, one of the most wealthiest countries around, spent a billion dollars, a billion dollars to pick up a large percentage of the land mines that were laid down there. Eighty-five people, they were well paid, eighty-five people lost their lives just picking up the land mines.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We just have a few seconds left.

COL. TAYLOR: I'm not very impressed by 2/3 vote on this. There's plenty of bad legislation going around that can get a majority or 2/3 vote.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you hope that Clinton will veto it?

COL. TAYLOR: I don't know whether he will or not, because it's abortion--there's an abortion provision in there that's going to be very testy, but if--

MS. FARNSWORTH: This is part of a special operations bill that in separate ways deals with abortion.

COL. TAYLOR: Part of Sen. Leahy's bill says later. Any country that violates this ban would stop foreign military sales. That's great. We're talking about U.S. sales of ships, aircraft, artillery--

SEN. LEAHY: That's not what it says, but that's okay.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I've got to interrupt. We have to go.

COL. TAYLOR: All right.

SEN. LEAHY: I wrote the legislation. I know what it says.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you.

SEN. LEAHY: The colonel doesn't.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you both.

COL. TAYLOR: I can't really see a 2/3 majority if that provision even gets close to what I think it says.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We'll come back to this another time. Thank you both for being with us. UPDATE - WARMING UP

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, some new word on the temperature of the world. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's warmer than ever, and last year set a record. That's what British meteorologists reported today, stating that the Earth's average surface temperature was 58.72 degrees, or .07 of a degree higher than the average for 1961 to 1990. Scientists have long been debating the warming phenomenon and its causes. To help us understand what this new study adds to the debate, we have Paul Hoffman, the editor-in-chief of "Discover Magazine." Paul Hoffman, thank you for joining us. Can you briefly explain the study and what it told scientists today.

PAUL HOFFMAN, Discover Magazine: [New York] Sure. The British Meteorological Office has been measuring the average temperature of the Earth from the 1850's, and what they've found is that 1995, despite the cold we've just had the last month, was the warmest year on record. It was warmer than 1990, which was the last previous record, and that the last five years are the warmest five- year period that we've ever had during these measurements. And that's interesting, because in 1991, we had the Mount Pinatubo, which is a volcano that went off, and--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the Philippines.

MR. HOFFMAN: Right. And it had a cooling effect. All the particles that it spewed out reflected sunlight away from the Earth, so even with the cooling, which scientists estimate was about 2 degrees, you still had global warming taking place.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how much warming is it? I mean, only .07 of a degree higher, is that much?

MR. HOFFMAN: .07 of a degree higher, but you have to take into effect the fact that Mount Pinatubo lowered the temperatures, and the thing that's happening you've seen a one-degree rise in the temperature just in this century. If you look back to when we had the last Ice Age, the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, and the average temperatures of the Earth were only between somewhere between 5 and 7 degrees cooler than they are now, yet, we had ice everywhere. I mean, Long Island was created when glaciers melted and dropped it off, so it doesn't take very much of a change in temperature to really have widespread effects on the Earth's climate.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like what? What kinds of effects?

MR. HOFFMAN: Well, what you're going to see and you're seeing right now is parts of the Antarctic ice shelf are breaking off. We had a 1000 square mile piece that broke off this year. You have ice slowly melting, sea levels rising. You have places like the Maldive Islands that's only a meter above sea level that could be completely underwater. I mean, here where I am in New York, if global warming actually takes place in the 21st century according to some models, you'll have a lot of Manhattan that's underwater. You have growing patterns changing around the world. It's not all bad effects either. You may have parts of the world where it's hard to grow crops now because the growing season isn't long enough where you'll actually be able to do that. You'll have the monsoon cycle in Southeast Asia affected and maybe you would have drought there. I mean, it doesn't take very much to change the climate. The big debate is, is mankind influencing global warming, or is it just a natural cycle?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And mankind, by mankind, you mean certain kinds of emissions and things like that?

MR. HOFFMAN: Absolutely.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Explain that.

MR. HOFFMAN: Yes. What the greenhouse effect is all about is carbon dioxide that's building up in the atmosphere when we burn coal, when we build--burn wood, and what happens is that carbon dioxide traps sunlight, and it's called the greenhouse effect because it's just the way greenhouse glass, you know, traps sunlight in, in a greenhouse. Okay. The question, though, is the sun also fluctuates just a little bit in intensity, and we have volcanoes that go off, and even though global warming is taking place, is it really due to these manmade emissions, or is it due to a natural cycle of the Sun?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Right.

MR. HOFFMAN: And slowly, the consensus of scientists is that there's a manmade element to this. And if you turn back the clock to 1988, you had only one scientist, a guy named Jim Hanson here at the Goddard Space Institute, saying that global warming was due primarily to human beings, and now you have the UN that just a few months ago a panel of scientists said that there's definitely a human element, so you see the consensus slowly coming around to the human contribution.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So this study today, how does it affect the debate, because there are still those who are very skeptical, if not downright dismissive, of the very idea of global warming, let alone of human, the human element here?

MR. HOFFMAN: Well, I mean, you're right, Charlayne. I mean, this does not prove that global warming is taking place. I mean, it's like going to a casino and you throw a few sixes in a row, you don't know that the dice is rigged. But this is one more little piece of evidence that global warming is taking place.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think this is likely--I mean, you say that the debate is going on and it's certainly been lively in the literature that I've read--how do you think this is going to affect policy action on this? Because those who are in the camp that say this is very much the effect of human beings want governments to take action. Those who say that this is natural causes and nothing substantial has really happened in the temperature over the years say nothing should happen. How--

MR. HOFFMAN: Well, it's certainly ammunition for those that would like more government regulation of industry. The difficult thing- -

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: To keep them from burning coals and--

MR. HOFFMAN: Exactly. To move away from fossil fuels to other forms of energy. The difficulty is it's very hard to roll back the clock. I mean, even environmentalists who think we should stop the burning of fossil fuels, it's going to be very difficult. I mean, we have countries like China, where the population is exploding, that would like to achieve a greater standard of living. They're going to burn fossil fuels. Is it unfair of us in the West who have already achieved a certain standard of living to say to them, hey, you can't do that? I mean, these are problems that even if we agreed we wanted to roll back global warming would not be easy to solve.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what about the people in areas like Upstate New York, where you are--you are in New York, but Upstate and the Midwest, who've been submerged under mountains of snow for the last few weeks, does this matter to them? I mean, or should it?

MR. HOFFMAN: Well, again, you know, what happens on a given day in terms of the temperature doesn't really relate to global warming. It's like my casino analogy. I could get six sixes in a row and it doesn't mean the dice is rigged. That's going to happen sometime. We're still going to have cold spells. We're still going to have warm spells. But what it means is on average the temperature is going to go up, and it will change growing patterns in New York and certainly in coastal areas in New York and in Long Island if the people that say global warming is taking place and if, indeed, the temperatures rise a few more degrees in the 21st century, you will see coastal areas that are underwater.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Big "if's." We'll continue to follow this. Thank you, Paul Hoffman, for being with us.

MR. HOFFMAN: Thank you, Charlayne. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, high level budget talks at the White House were cancelled, but House Republicans were to meet tonight to discuss a new strategy that could end the 20-day partial government shutdown. Serbs in a Sarajevo suburb released 16 civilians abducted over the past two weeks. And General Motors announced it will begin selling electric cars in California and Arizona this Fall. We'll see you tomorrow night with Shields & Gigot, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.