The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. MAC NEIL: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we have a report on today's NATO bombing in Bosnia and a Newsmaker interview with UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright. Correspondent Jeff Kaye reports on the campaign in California to change the Endangered Species Act, we hear the new debate over a proposed amendment to make it unconstitutional to burn the American flag, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt closes with some thoughts about a baseball fan's revenge. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: NATO warplanes attacked Bosnia's Serbs today. US fighter jets participated in an air raid on an ammunition depot near Serb headquarters in Pale. The UN had threatened the strike after two days of heavy Serb shelling in Sarajevo. The Serbs had also defied an ultimatum to return heavy weapons taken from the UN protection force known as UNPROFOR. It was the first time during the war that NATO attacked Serb headquarters. Joint Chiefs Chairman General John Shalikashvili spoke about the raid in Washington.

GEN. JOHN SHALIKASHVILI, Chairman, Joint Chiefs: It signals clearly that NATO is continually ready and prepared to conduct such missions in support of UNPROFOR, and in this particular case, it signaled that UNPROFOR had made a demand upon, upon the warring factions. Those demands were not met, and in this particular case, they were ready to request air strikes to be conducted, which is something that had not occurred all the time in the past, so I think it is significant that perhaps this whole level of fighting and the frustration is reaching a point where people are saying enough is enough.

MR. MAC NEIL: After the NATO raids, the Serbs shelled Sarajevo and five UN designated safe areas in Bosnia. At least 20 people were reportedly killed. A UN spokesman called it a severe escalation. Earlier today, President Clinton defended the NATO strike, saying he hoped they would force the Serbs to stop violating the weapons exclusion zone near Sarajevo. Perry -- Defense Sec. Perry said further raids might be necessary. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Chechen peace talks ended today just three hours after they began. Russian negotiators walked out of the internationally sponsored meeting in Chechnya's capital, Grozny. Heavy fighting continued in the breakaway republic. There was no word on when the talks might resume. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate passed the rescissions bill today. It cut $16.4 billion from current federal spending. The vote was 61 to 38. The bill also provides more than $7 billion in disaster aid. Democrats object to cuts in education and environmental programs. President Clinton criticized the plan this morning during a White House ceremony. Republican leaders responded later.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: After I negotiated with the Senate on spending reductions, we got politics as usual. Congress went behind closed doors and cut a lot of education and training out and put some pork in the bill for specific Congressmen and specific congressional districts and states. That's the old politics, so if the bill comes to me in the same form without the restoration of the education and training, yes, I will veto it.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Majority Leader: In my view, it's a very good bill. After additional funding for disaster assistance, the bill provides $9 billion in budget savings, a down payment on putting us on a path to a balanced budget that seems to me that we had 61 votes in the Senate, not enough to override a veto, but if the President is having second thoughts, I would hope he would follow through on his second thoughts and sign the bill and get this disaster assistance to the people who need it.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton mounted a show of support today for Surgeon General Nominee Dr. Henry Foster. That nomination is scheduled to go before the Senate committee vote tomorrow. The President had breakfast with Foster at the White House and spoke afterwards in the Rose Garden.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I want to say again he has my strong support. I believe that he should be voted out of the committee and he certainly should be confirmed for the United States Senate. If he is not qualified to be America's doctors, it's hard to imagine who would be. There have been a lot of politics and a lot of talk back and forth in this nomination, but now the time has come to do the right thing, and I trust that the committee and ultimately the Senate will do the right thing and confirm Dr. Foster as Surgeon General.

MR. LEHRER: House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared today before a congressional task force reviewing the Endangered Species Act. He said it was not necessary to protect every plant and animal species from extinction. A panel from the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday the 1973 act was still needed. We'll have more on the debate later in the program.

MR. MAC NEIL: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today that Israelwill have to return the disputed Golan Heights to Syria. He said it would be the price for reaching peace in the Middle East. Yesterday, Israel and Syria reached a security agreement for that area. Israel seized the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war. It has been the main obstacle in talks. Yesterday's accord was the first between the two countries since they began peace talks more than three years ago.

MR. LEHRER: An agreement was signed in Washington today aimed at increasing tourism in Northern Ireland. Representatives of the United States, Britain, and the Irish republic did the signing. It happened at the start of a conference to promote investment in Northern Ireland. Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, attended, so did Jerry Adams, the leader of the Irish Republican Army's political wing. President Clinton told the conference peace in Northern Ireland is closer than it's been in a generation. He said new investment would boost the economy and keep the process going.

MR. MAC NEIL: Those are the day's top stories. Now it's on to the NATO bombing in Bosnia, the Endangered Species Act, the new flag burning debate, and a message to baseball. NEWSMAKER

MR. MAC NEIL: Our lead story tonight, the NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs. We start with a report prepared by Nik Gowing of Independent Television News.

NIK GOWING, ITN: A large cloud of brown dust and smoke southeast of Sarajevo, first confirmation that NATO had carried out the UN's request to retaliate against the Bosnian Serbs on an arms dump outside the Serb headquarters in Pale. Inside Pale, air raid sirens sounded, the smoke rising from among trees beyond the town's built up area as NATO had claimed. Children were ordered to evacuate schools. Pale braced itself for more. Twenty-five minutes later came a second strike on another suburb. All morning, the smoke trails of the NATO warplanes had drawn their warnings in the perfect blue skies above Sarajevo. American A-10 tank busters fired flares and drew attention to their presence. Today was not about bluff. Two weeks ago, the UN's Bosnian Commander, Gen. Rupert Smith, had wanted these planes to attack after similar Serb violations. But at UN headquarters in Zagreb, the UN civilian commander, Yasushi Akashi, overruled him in the hope diplomacy would work, especially the contact group's pressure on Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. That has now failed. Today, Mr. Akashi's intent is different.

YASUSHI AKASHI, UN Special Representative: We feel that we are absolutely entitled to engage in the air strike.

NIK GOWING: For two weeks now, there has been intense shelling around Sarajevo, productive, increasingly well armed Bosnian forces trying to make tactical advances to push Serb forces back from certain hilltops. The Serb response has been heavy shelling on Bosnian forces, less than usual on the city, itself, according to Western sources. But to do this, the Serbs have removed heavy weapons corralled in UN compounds since February last year after the market massacre. The Serbs have regularly seized weapons back as much to test UN resolve as to overcome their increasingly weak military position. The patience of the UN is now exhausted. Two issues in Sarajevo have forced the UN to act. A few days ago, The Bosnian Serbs seized four heavy weapons from two UN compounds at Dojne and Osijek. The UN ordered the Serbs to return the weapons by midday. They did not, despite a personal assurance from Serb commander Gen. Mladic that they would. There result: the bombing of the arms dump in a valley outside Pale, a depletion of military supplies the Serbs are increasingly short of. This is the first target on a long list drawn up, and by mid-day tomorrow, other Serb weapons sneaked into the 20 kilometer exclusion zone must all be withdrawn, or there will be further air strikes. Gen. Smith's warning overnight to both Serbs and Bosnians have been unambiguous.

LT. GEN. RUPERT SMITH, UN Commander in Bosnia: Failure to comply with either deadline will result in the offending party or parties being attacked from the air.

NIK GOWING: Unlike two weeks ago, today Gen. Smith and the UN had international backing.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: NATO should be prepared to react when our commanders on the ground need them. And, you know, I've been, of all of our NATO allies, the United States has been the most vigorous proponent of the use of NATO air strikes in all appropriate circumstances, and we've laid those out.

JOHN MAJOR, Prime Minister, Great Britain: And by full support, I mean they will have it for whatever action they may consider necessary in the light of the events of the last day or so.

NIK GOWING: While NATO drew up its final air strike plans, the increasingly beleaguered Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was in Banja Luka, putting final cement to a new political and military alliance with the Krajina Serbs to offset the lack of support from Belgrade. Once again, as always, in such circumstances, Karadzic predicted dire consequences.

RADOVAN KARADZIC, Bosnian Serb Leader: They have betrayed our people who have been butchered in Western Slovonia, and if United Nations order air attacks, we are going to treat United Nations as the enemy.

DOUGLAS HURD, Foreign Secretary, Great Britain: Mr. Karadzic has said a great many things over the years. What counts is not what he says but what happens on the ground. And that's what the commanders on the ground will be judging.

FRED ECKHARD, UN Spokesman: There could be retaliation, and, of course, the Bosnian Serbs have made very clear that they would consider this a hostile act, but we felt that the situation in Sarajevo had gotten so bad that we had no choice but to take this gamble.

NIK GOWING: And gamble it is. Gen. Rupert Smith ordered his UN forces to batten down in defensive positions today. Despite the current shelling, UN insiders increasingly view Bosnian Serb threats as bluster because their forces are over-stretched, increasingly short of munitions and fuel, and morale is low.

MR. MAC NEIL: We go now to a Newsmaker interview that I conducted a short time ago with the U.S. representative to the United Nations, Amb. Madeleine Albright. I asked her what the NATO response might be to today's Serb shelling of Sarajevo and four other cities which came after the NATO air raid. Here's what she had to say.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, UN Ambassador: Well, Robin, we have obviously been following this very carefully all day and have been -- I've been talking to Kofi Anon, the head of the peacekeeping operation at the UN. There is another deadline that comes up tomorrow at noon, and that deadline is for them to remove their weapons from the exclusion zones or put them into the collection points. And the UN is determined to remain tough on this. This -- we, frankly, it is not unexpected that there be this kind of retaliation at the beginning. The Bosnian Serbs kind of flex, and then they often do comply. The point that I think we have to remember is that there was an escalation, particularly in shelling on Sarajevo. As you know, there had been a call by one of the commanders, Rupert Smith, for some kind of a strike a couple of weeks ago. When that wasn't responded to, we didn't understand the logic of that. We believe that the escalation by the Bosnian Serbs in shelling onto Sarajevo required some kind of an air power response, and now the second ultimatum also is very important.

MR. MAC NEIL: You, yourself, have personally -- I see reported - - been urging Sec. Gen. Boutros Ghali on behalf of the United States to be more aggressive with air power, is that correct?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: That is correct, because we believe that ultimately the peacekeepers will be in a better position if they have air power behind them, and we also know that ultimately this cannot be won militarily, this is not an issue of NATO bombing. It is more Bosnian Serb compliance, and the necessity of getting the Pale Serbs to the negotiating table. We have to keep remembering what's going on here. The Bosnians accepted the map. They have been the victims, and the Bosnian Serbs now need to come and talk on the basis of the contact group map. And what this is all about is getting the Pale Serbs to comply.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, Pale Serbs are the Bosnian Serbs who have their headquarters at Pale, the place --

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Correct.

MR. MAC NEIL: -- near which the bombing took place today. Presumably, what you want, what the Clinton administration wants is to prevent a situation deteriorating so far that the UN force was pulled out, is that correct?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, we believe that UNPROFOR plays a very important role there in delivering humanitarian supplies, keeping airports open, making sure that these exclusion zones stay without the weapons. And we think -- frankly, we had come to a very difficult fork in the road. Boutros Ghali had come to the Security Counsel wanting a review of where UNPROFOR was going. The escalating shelling of Sarajevo was a serious problem, and we think that it's very important to show more -- to be more resolute, and the air power is one way to do it. And we are -- clearly, this is a very difficult twenty-four to forty-eight hour period. But the point here is that the Bosnian Serbs have to get the idea, they have to get the message that ultimately there need to be negotiations.

MR. MAC NEIL: Just at the point though of the situation getting so bad that the pressures would increase to pull the UN force out, which is one of the Secretary General's options, that withdrawal, it's widely predicted, would be a messy and dangerous business and would involve U.S. troops in helping the UN force to withdraw, correct?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: That is correct. I mean, these are NATO allies, many of them, and we believe that that is an important responsibility that we have, but we think that UNPROFOR continues to play a very important role. We think that the mandate of UNPROFOR and the numbers of people involved in UNPROFOR needs to be restudied, that we need to see about how to make it more resolute. And that's what we're going to be pressing for in the Security Council.

MR. MAC NEIL: Why does it play an important role if it does not prevent the civilians in the security zones, those six cities that have been declared safe areas, if it can't prevent civilians from being killed in those areas?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, we want to make sure that there's a way that they can, and part of the discussion here, and we are beginning to talk about the options in the Security Council, is how to make sure that those Eastern enclaves are not subject to this kind of an attack, those, and that the civilians there are not subjected to the shelling. We are in a very difficult period, Robin. There's no question about that. And I think that we believe that the UN and NATO in this particular operation is showing the kind of resolve that should have been shown earlier. We have felt, as you know, that air power -- there were a number of times when use of air power would have been useful. We might have not gotten into this, exactly this bad situation had it been used earlier.

MR. MAC NEIL: How's the United States getting around the objection from Britain and France up till recently that if you use air power, you're going to endanger their troops, who are the preponderant troops in the UN force there?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, I think you can see that they have agreed that at a certain point that it is very important to use the air power. And, frankly, the issue here is Sarajevo. We have had disagreements about how to protect the other cities, Gorazde and Bihac, but the major powers have been able to come around to realizing that Sarajevo is key, it is the symbol. It's a multiethnic city. It's what a lot of what this argument is all about, and whenever Sarajevo has been under serious siege or attacked or shelled, the major powers have come together resolutely, and that is what has happened in the last 24 hours.

MR. MAC NEIL: Could it escalate further from here if the Bosnian Serbs want to play tough and not just back down, as you predicted they might? I mean, could there really be a severe escalation and NATO find itself and the UN actually at war, in the war with the Bosnian Serbs?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, we believe that this kind of resoluteness will avoid that. The point is that everything was getting worse. I think we need to keep in mind what has been going on here for the last several weeks, and that Sarajevo that had for a certain period some modicum of a normal life was again subjected to very heavy shelling and what we are going to work for again through the contact group to not work so much on, as I said, the whole issue here is not NATO bombing but Bosnian Serb compliance. So we believe that continued pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to understand that it's important for them to get the message actually should lead to a better hope of a solution than just kind of letting it go along.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you agree with the British reporter we heard before you came on, who said that the Bosnian Serb military position is increasingly bad, that they are feeling a shortage of weapons and fuel and that sort of thing?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: We are hearing that they are having certain difficulties and that the sanctions, in fact, are working against them, but, nevertheless, they do have a large preponderance of the heavy weapons, which is why it's important to make sure that those heavy weapons are not in the exclusion zones. But clearly, the sanctions are having an effect on them.

MR. MAC NEIL: Where does all this leave the diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting and get a peace settlement?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, as you know, the contact group is negotiating, trying very hard the same tact diplomatically, which is to isolate the Bosnian Serbs and there have been, as you know, discussions with President Milosevic of the former Republic of Yugoslavia -- Serbia, in order to get him to keep greater pressure on the Pale Serbs and on the Bosnian Serbs and to have mutual recognition to recognize Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in exchange for some kind of a suspension of the sanctions. Those talks proceeded over the weekend. There are offers still on thetable, and that diplomatic effort will continue through the contact group.

MR. MAC NEIL: But he turned you down on that one?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, we have not agreed on a basic point, which is we need to keep the leverage on this whole sanctions aspect, since that is the key to keeping the Bosnian Serbs isolated, and to make sure that if there is any cheating, that sanctions could be reimposed. And he is much more interested in having them removed, and we can't give up that lever.

MR. MAC NEIL: Is there any -- are you any closer -- do you feel any more hopeful that the Bosnian Serbs in their military position are getting nearer to saying okay, we will accept something like the map that the five countries of the contact group came up with?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, there have been some statements recently by Karadzic saying that he could work on or accept the basis of the contact group map, and I think Nick Burns at the State Department today made very clear that basically they have to say that they will accept the contact group map as a basis of negotiations, and a starting point, and I think that, that there is some indication of that. But, again, there are so many aspects to this that we need to keep the pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to get the message that they need to accept the map and stop this shelling of Sarajevo.

MR. MAC NEIL: There was a report after the Milosevic mission a couple of days ago that you all have just run out of ideas, there aren't any new ideas for Bosnia. Is that fair?

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, I don't think it's fair. I think that basically everybody knows this is a very difficult situation. There are creative diplomats. I think Bob Frasier, our contact group negotiator, has spent hours. We have all worked very hard on trying to figure out the best way to keep the -- the Bosnian Serbs isolated and to have them figure out that there is no other end to this than for them to negotiate. This is not going to be solved militarily. It is going to ultimately need a political solution.

MR. MAC NEIL: But they don't believe that yet.

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Well, they may get the message.

MR. MAC NEIL: Amb. Albright, thank you very much for joining us.

AMB. ALBRIGHT: Thank you. FOCUS - UNDER THREAT

MR. LEHRER: Now, property rights and endangered species. Yesterday, a panel of scientists commissioned by Congress four years ago called the Endangered Species Act a critically important law that should be strengthened. Today a congressional task force held hearings aimed at doing just the opposite. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports on the debate over a major piece of environmental legislation.

JEFFREY KAYE: In Central California, the property rights movement has struck with the force of a political thunderbolt.

SPOKESMAN: And do not let them take your land. Do not let them take your livelihood away.

MR. KAYE: Land in California's vast Central Valley is more than just a symbol. It is "the" primary economic resource for the multibillion dollar farming industry, for oil, for ranching, and for development. But as bulldozers clear land for urbanization and as plows till new fields for crops, increasing demands on the land have placed property owners on a collision course with environmental regulators and laws, chief among them the Endangered Species Act.

DEMONSTRATORS: [shouting] Reform the act now! Reform the act now!

MR. KAYE: The 1973 act sets stiff penalties for harming endangered animals, plants, or their habitats. California has 161 federally listed endangered species, more than any other state in the continental U.S. The ecologically diverse Central Valley has become ground zero in the debate over the Endangered Species Act, the ESA.

SPOKESMAN: The Central Valley of California is one of the areas of the country most impacted by the restrictions imposed under the ESA.

MR. KAYE: Republican Congressman Richard Pombo, a Central Valley rancher, shares a congressional task force charged with overhauling the Endangered Species Act. Pombo says the act has been a disaster for his area.

REP. RICHARD POMBO, [R] California: We've had land values plummet in some instances up to 90 percent. They've received 90 percent less for their property. We've had bankruptcies. We have cities in small towns in the Central Valley of California that have between 40 and 50 percent unemployment.

MR. KAYE: This spring, Pombo's task force held hearings around the country, including two in Central California. Farmers arrived on tractor and by the busload to pack the hearings. They regaled sympathetic committee members with what they described as horror stories. They complained that enforcement of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, as well as its California counterpart, was preventing them from using their own land.

MARION MATHIS, Farmer: The options available to us are being narrowed and the use of our private property undermined by the ESA.

LAWRENCE TURNQUIST: Travelers Insurance Company took the ranch. Bank of America took the equipment. This was a direct result of the Endangered Species Act listing of the winter run salmon.

BOB VICE, California Farm Bureau: Farmers are being prosecuted for unintentionally killing or injuring an endangered species during normal farming activities.

MR. KAYE: Often cited by farmers groups is a Central California case involving a 4800 acre farm owned by Valley Communities, Incorporated.

RANDY ABBOTT, Valley Communities, Inc.: The main problem with fish and wildlife is they don't want the land touched, period.

MR. KAYE: Randy Abbott is vice president of Valley Communities. How much of the land that you own is now untouchable?

RANDY ABBOTT: A full section, 640 acres.

MR. KAYE: Abbott's firm grows cattle feed, alfalfa, and cotton. The company has been charged with violating the Endangered Species Act.

RANDY ABBOTT: The Fish & Wildlife Service has alleged 12 counts of endangering or taking endangered species, being Tipton kangaroo rats and blunt-nosed leopard lizards.

MR. KAYE: In 1991, Valley Communities began farm this previously uncultivated land, and according to Fish & Wildlife, continued for two and a half years, despite repeated warnings that the property contained endangered species. Part of the problem, according to the government, was that the farm used treated waste water, which is possibly harmful to animals, to irrigate the fields. Company officials claimed local permits authorized use of the water, but the federal agency didn't buy that argument. It threatened to file civil charges unless the company agreed to a costly settlement.

RANDY ABBOTT: In that meeting, the Fish & Wildlife Service said we will not, we will not go further with any action if you will give us 640 acres of land and a $300,000 fee. And we declined to participate in that kind of an action, and it was within a matter of a month after that that the first charge was actually filed.

MR. KAYE: And how would you characterize this offer from Fish & Wildlife?

RANDY ABBOTT: I have used the word extortion. And I think that's probably a very clear statement with regard to that kind of a settlement.

MR. KAYE: How was it extortion?

RANDY ABBOTT: They're asking for our land; they're asking for our money; and nothing is provided to us in return.

MR. KAYE: Karen Wass feels the same way. She paid a fine after Fish & Wildlife alleged a tractor on her vacant land may have harmed a Tipton kangaroo rat. She believes the government should compensate landowners like her if it wants private property used as endangered species habitat.

KAREN WASS: If they took it to put a freeway through here, they'd pay us for it, they'd condemn the land and pay us for it. So, to me, if it's a societal value that these species that are here be maintained and if government is going to take the responsibility of it, then all they need to do is buy this from me, and I'll give it all to them.

MR. KAYE: Although Wass recouped most of her costs after suing the company which sold her the land, she says her property is now worthless. You have this property that you purchased. What can you do with it?

KAREN WASS: Nothing.

MR. KAYE: Can you sell it?

KAREN WASS: No. Nobody would buy it now.

WAYNE WHITE, US Fish and Wildlife Service: In her view, she was stopped. In reality, the Endangered Species Act offers the opportunity for her, in fact, to meet her intended purpose and use of her property and address endangered species' needs.

MR. KAYE: Wayne White heads the California office of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. He says landowners like Wass, with endangered species on their property, can still use the land, provided they make other habitat available. For some property owners, this can be an expensive proposition. White also contends that his agency primarily targets landowners who plow previously unused land. At what point do you step in?

WAYNE WHITE: It's typically where a native habitat has been converted. The cases you brought up were, in fact, that.

MR. KAYE: White believes protecting endangered species is a responsibility to be shared by government and by private property owners. White met recently with scientists studying endangered species on the Carrizo Plain Conversation Area in Southern California. One of those scientists, biologist Daniel Williams, says private property rights are far from absolute.

DANIEL WILLIAMS, Biologist: If you go to buy a piece of property you want to build condominiums on or put a factory on it or a pig farm, you're going to check with your county to find out what the land is zoned, I mean, whether or not you can, can use it the way you intend to use it. Property owners have to become as aware of the endangered species issue as they are of the other zoning or land use restriction.

MR. KAYE: But many property owners are outraged not only by limits on their land but by what is being protected and studied. Studies by Williams and his colleagues include such endangered species as blunt-nosed leopard lizards, which frolic openly in the nature reserve but which are a rare sight on developed land. Other endangered species here, such as the kit fox, are nocturnal. So are the giant kangaroo rats, cousins of the Tipton kangaroo rats, which the scientists trap, count, and release. Biologists and regulators' interest in such species as kangaroo rats is scorned by critics who have hanged rats in effigy.

SPOKESMAN: Let's send a message to the judge this morning! Let the farmer go!

MR. KAYE: To Roy Ashburn, a supervisor in Central Valley's Kern County, environmentalists have gone too far with the Endangered Species Act.

ROY ASHBURN, Supervisor, Kern Co., CA: It is a one-way street, where more and more species, insects, and rodents, not majestic creatures as I think legislators and the public originally envisioned, but now we're protecting flees and flies and lizards and rats, and it seems very absurd.

DANIEL WILLIAMS: You can't just preserve a grizzly bear and a wolf, or a California Condor and ignore everything else, because everything is inter-dependent.

MR. KAYE: So for those people who say, why preserve kangaroo rats, where's the inter-dependency there?

DANIEL WILLIAMS: Well, in this system, the kangaroo rats are really key to the whole functioning of the ecosystem. They provide the base, the food chain for predatory birds and mammals, and reptiles. They are really essential in shaping the plant community, the types of plants that grow here, and the soil nutrients. They provide refuges for lizards and other small animals in their burrow systems, so they're really, know, the keystone species. Their activities benefit a whole host of other species, and without them, most of these other species would disappear.

DEMONSTRATOR: [shouting] Hey, hey, ESA!

MR. KAYE: Environmentalists who support the current law say in the zeal to challenge the Endangered Species Act, truth has often fallen casualty. In the fertile soil of discontent, tall tales have sprouted fast. There was the well-publicized case of Tuang Ming-Lin, who according to some reports was charged without warning after his tractor allegedly ran over a rat. In fact, according to Fish & Wildlife, Ming-Lin had been warned several times that endangered species permits were needed to farm the property. Even congressional testimony has not always been based on fact. On July 19, 1994, Congressman Pombo submitted a statement to a Senate subcommittee saying, "In 1986, the federal government declared my land critical habitat for the San Joaquin kit fox. This action effectively stripped my property of its value and forced my family to operate our ranch with an unwanted, unneeded, unsilent partner, the federal government." But Pombo's land has not been declared critical habitat, according to Wayne White of the Fish & Wildlife Service.

WAYNE WHITE: There is no critical habitat -- there has never been critical habitat designated for the San Joaquin kit fox, never proposed. We have never designated critical habitat for the San Joaquin kit fox.

MR. KAYE: Nowhere in the state of California?

WAYNE WHITE: We have critical habitat for other species but no San Joaquin kit fox.

MR. KAYE: Asked for clarification, Congressman Pombo now says he hasn't been affected by a critical habitat designation. To what extent have you been affected by the declaration of a critical habitat in your own life?

REP. RICHARD POMBO: I personally have not been directly affected by it in, in my own, in my own property or the ranches that we have, but a lot of my neighbors and the property owners in those areas have been directly affected by a lowering of property value on their property because it's now permanent habitat for an endangered species.

MR. KAYE: Although environmentalists have rallied to support the act, by and large their actions have been drowned out by property rights activists energized by a new and sympathetic congressional majority. The changes Pombo advocates include government compensation for property owners whose land is declared endangered species habitat, consideration of economic factors in the act's implementation, and outside scientific review of decisions to list endangered species.

SEN. BENNETT JOHNSTON, [D] Louisiana: I know of no one who defends the present Endangered Species law in the situation that it is.

MR. KAYE: A group of bipartisan Senators has also introduced a bill to rewrite the act. Their proposals are similar to Pombo's but do not include provisions for government compensation of property owners. And in response to criticism by farmers and developers, the Clinton administration has pledged reforms of its own. It has promised to streamline what it admits are often cumbersome and lengthy procedures to minimize economic impacts on landowners and to provide greater say for local and state governments. Although environmentalists worry reforms may lead to the extinction of more species, there is little question that some change in the Endangered Species Act is inevitable. FOCUS - BURNING ISSUE?

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight, a pre-Memorial Day debate about burning the American flag. Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held the Constitution protected such acts as legitimate political protest. An attempt to amend the Constitution followed that decision, but it failed. Congressional supporters of such sanctions are back now with new legislation. We join the debate about it with two members of Congress who are both veterans of military service, Congressman Gerald Solomon, Republican of New York, chairman of the House Rules Committee, a former Marine, and Sen. Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska, who was a Navy Seal during the Vietnam War, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Margaret Warner talked to them yesterday.

MS. WARNER: Welcome, gentlemen. Congressman, let me start with you. Why, in your view, does the country need an amendment to ban the burning of the American flag?

REP. GERALD SOLOMON, [R] New York: Well, Margaret, you know the United States of America is the beacon of hope for so many people all over the world. That American flag means so much to the American people, whether you're in the military today, whether you're former military, whether you are family, having lost a loved one. We need something to rally round. Only back in the early 70's, you know, patriotism and pride in this country almost went out of the American language, and it was brought back in the 80's, and we turned this country around, we turned the world around, defeating Communism almost everywhere, and if we don't maintain this kind of patriotism in America, we lose something, and we just can't afford to do that. If America goes down, there's no one else to save us.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Kerrey, what about that argument, that it's a way of sort of preserving patriotism?

SEN. BOB KERREY, [D] Nebraska: Well, we don't need to bend our Constitution. I have got respect for Gerry's position, but we do not need to mend our Constitution to protect my capacity or anybody else's capacity to be patriotic, to rally around the flag. The law protects any private property owner that owns a flag. You know, just because we find something offensive doesn't mean that we ought to put it in our Constitution and prohibit it. Indeed, I would argue that the conservative approach would be to say that if you don't need a law, if you don't need a constitutional amendment, don't write it in, and what we have today at the community level is such a strong revulsion against anyone who burns a flag that it doesn't occur. It's so rare that it occurs when it does occur, people are shunned, people lose their jobs, and people are regarded as something lower than life when they do burn a flag. We don't need to amend the Constitution in order to prevent people from doing this.

MS. WARNER: Congressman Solomon, what about that argument that really flag burning is hardly a -- it's hardly sweeping the country and that you really don't need this to prevent flag burning?

REP. SOLOMON: Well, let me just say Sen. Kerrey is one of the most patriotic men that I know. He's a very respected member of the United States Senate, respected American. But the truth of the matter is that I have here 49 memorializations from the state -- of his state of Nebraska, from my state of New York, 49 out of 50 states have memorialized this Congress to pass the exact language that we have in our constitutional amendment which simply does this. It does not ban desecration of the American flag. What it says is: the Congress and the states shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. And what that does, you know, we are a republic of states formed together, and the states ought to have this right if they see fit. It's against the law today to physically desecrate the $1 bill, the Washington Monument, the United States Supreme Court building. You know, you, you either buy money, or you borrow it, but it's yours, and you can't physically desecrate that money. What better symbol than the American flag to say that we can't desecrate --

SEN. KERREY: Gerry, if the government of the United States owns a flag, you can't desecrate that or burn it either. I mean, if you want to compare the act of burning a dollar or desecrating the Washington Monument, you can't burn a flag that's owned by the government of the United States, the flag that flies over the Washington Monument. That's a prohibited behavior. You can be arrested for doing it. And I'm personally -- I appreciate that the Nebraska Unicameral almost passed and urged us to do this. I think they made a mistake. And I'm not going to amend the First Amendment when I don't see a real threat to the American people as a consequence. It doesn't prevent us from rallying around the flag. It doesn't -- I think -- threaten us whatsoever. Indeed, as I said, I think the conservative approach -- and I would say this to my Unicameral with great respect -- very conservative legislature in the main, you don't pass laws if they're not needed, you say let's not pass a law to regulate a business, to regulate a behavior if the people, themselves, are already behaving in that fashion. Why pass something if it's not needed?

MS. WARNER: Congressman, what about that point? I take your point that many of these states want to do it, but do you think it's a national problem that needs a constitutional amendment to address it?

REP. SOLOMON: Well, I think it is. Rose Lee, who is the past national president of the Widows of American Servicemen Killed in Action, testified before our committee today, and she was crying because she was -- and she was clutching the flag that was given her at her husband's burial, and you know, it meant so much to her that when she were to see this happen, to see that flag physically desecrated, it just meant so much to her, but I think, you know, Sen. Kennedy [Kerrey] is making a good persuasive argument and so is Gerry Solomon but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of the American people want this constitutional amendment, forty-nine states having memorialized Congress to pass it. What I say is -- and that's why my constitutional amendment doesn't prohibit the desecration of the flag -- it empowers the states to do that if they see fit. I say let's put it out to the states. I believe that this amendment would be ratified faster than any other constitutional amendment ever put before the American people. And if so, that's what this country is all about. Let's let the American people have their way.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Kerrey, let's turn this argument around. What is the harm in an amendment like this?

SEN. KERREY: Well, the harm is that you're changing the First Amendment of the Constitution. The harm is that you're responding to the -- you know, public fervor to do something, instead of turning to them and saying this is a Republican form of government, I need to explain something to you, Mr. and Mrs. Citizen, if you don't need to amend our Constitution to protect behavior that isn't occurring, then let's not fool around with our Constitution. Let's worry about something that is important. I understand that there's revulsion against burning the flag. But, as I said, that flag burning, that flag is protected, it's owned by private property, and by a private person, and most importantly, we have at the community level already a standard in place that prevents people from burning flags. So, I mean, I would just say with great respect, part of my job is to lead not just to follow what the public sentiment is. On that basis, what we ought to do is hook up the Internet to every household and when it gets over 50 percent, then we ought to amend the Constitution. We ought to write it in the Constitution. I just don't believe that we should govern that way.

MS. WARNER: Congressman, how do you respond to that?

REP. SOLOMON: Well, you know, our forefathers were extremely smart, and you have to be so proud of how they wrote this Constitution. It is so difficult to amend the Constitution of the United States, it's been done so few times in the 200 plus years of the history of this country to get 290 members of Congress to vote to allow the American people to make the decision, to get 67 Senators in the other body to allow the American people to make this decision, and then to get 38 states to ratify this amendment, that is very difficult. Even with very important issues, it rarely happens. This is so overwhelmingly supported by the American people that it would be ratified within a couple of years, not seven years. That in itself I think speaks to the issue, and that's why we're going to put it to the people and let them make that choice.

MS. WARNER: But what about Sen. Kerrey's argument that it's not enough when you're talking about the Constitution to have an overwhelming majority of the American people for something, I mean, that that shouldn't be the test?

REP. SOLOMON: No. But noted constitutional lawyers like Robert Bork and others that testified before our committee, both liberals and conservatives, today said that this is not an infringement on the freedom of speech. You know, it's not all right to yell fire in a theater, it's not all right to stand on the street corner at 3 AM, shouting obscenities. We have laws against pornography. All of these are not absolute rights. And neither is the physical desecration of the flag. We don't say that you can't desecrate the flag. We say you can't physically desecrate the flag. And that means that you can criticize it, you can belittle it, you can do anything you want, except don't burn it. We don't want a veteran who has served in the armed forces standing out in front of the White House watching the flag to be burned, we don't want him to be outraged enough to, to perhaps even endanger himself by going and trying to prevent it. That's what this law will do, we feel.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Kerrey, as a veteran yourself and a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, how do you respond to that point about the way veterans will feel?

SEN. KERREY: Well, I really prefer not to answer as a veteran or a Medal of Honor recipient. I really prefer in this case not to presume that mantel as a force of my argument and argue, instead, as a citizen, who believes again -- I mean -- if there was evidence that we were at risk, there were lots of people burning out there in America, then fine, let's consider this, but I say with citizens I understand how they feel about the flag, I feel the same way, and -- but I have -- in the time that this thing first surfaced after the Republican convention in '88, I believe it was, and a man burned a flag, and the Supreme Court said it was protected behavior, since that time, I have never seen anybody burn a flag. I mean, I've never witnessed it. I've never had letters come in from people saying, I was at a rally or I was out in front of the White House and I saw this happen. Indeed, it's much more likely to happen if we write it into the Constitution. It's much more likely that freedom-loving citizens will be angered by this, and, and be provocative as a consequence just to get a reaction out of people. Again, I -- the most persuasive argument that I make, I think, and compelling argument is to say, you know, take a conservative view of this Constitution. If you're not -- if there isn't a compelling need, for gosh sakes, don't check -- change it to protect us against something against which we're already protected as a consequence of community standards that seems to me to prevent people already from doing this.

MS. WARNER: Congressman, finally, just on the political prospects, do you think you're going to get the 290 votes you need in the House?

REP. SOLOMON: I don't think there's any question about it. The subcommittee will mark it up tomorrow in the Judiciary -- on June 6th, Chairman Henry Hyde will put the bill out of his committee, it will come to my Rules Committee, and as chairman of the Rules Committee, I can assure you it will receive expedited procedure to get to the floor of the House, and on June 28th, we will successfully pass with more than the two thirds vote this constitutional amendment. We'll send it over to the Senate, and see what happens. I have great respect for Sen. Kerrey, but I just have to disagree with him. I met today with dozens of Chinese who are victims of the almost widespread suppression today of the oppression in China. They look at this flag and they say, America, you are our beacon of hope, let's keep it that way, let's make that flag the symbol for freedom in America and all over this world.

SEN. KERREY: I would presume that flag burning is illegal in China, that the government cracks down on what happens, and I don't want this country to say to its citizens that if I've got expression, that the community is already as a consequence of the sanction controlling, I mean, again, I don't -- I'm not critical of Congressman Solomon or others who are trying to do this, but I - - I will do what I can in the Senate to make sure this, this constitutional amendment is not sent out to the states.

MS. WARNER: Well, gentlemen, that's all the time we have. Thanks for being with us. ESSAY - BRONX CHEER

MR. MAC NEIL: Now some final thoughts on behalf of America's baseball fans. Essayist Roger Rosenblatt is at the plate.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Just when you think you've got people pegged, they surprise you and let you up. I'm speaking of America's baseball fans, among whom I am one. Now I'm becoming a fan of the fans. They are not showing up at the games. In the opening weeks of the 1995 season, the fans are sending an unmistakable message to the owners and players of America's pastime, they who went on strike for eight and a half months, the fans are sore, mighty sore. No number of reduced ticket prices, no flurry of souped up promotional campaigns, no ballpark giveaways are drawing the people in. Players who usually charge kids a fee for autographs are giving them away for free. Whoopee! The attendance at season openers was down about 20 percent from last year. The Kansas City Royals drew their smallest opening day crowd in 11 years; the St. Louis Cardinals their smallest crowd in 17 years. The Chicago White Sox cut ticket prices up to 75 percent. Their opening day attendance was their smallest since 1982. As Mel Allen used to say, "How about that?" It gets better. At Shea's Stadium in New York, where the Mets play baseball from time to time, three fans ran out on the field and tossed $1 bills at the players. The tiny crowd went wild. At Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Cubs' management gave the fans souvenir magnetic schedules as a gift. The fans threw them back. At Candlestick Park in San Francisco a Giants fan put a sign on his windshield that read: "I'm on strike for one full season." A Kansas City fan threw back a home run ball he'd caught. The other few fans cheered. "We forgive you, Phils -- not," read a sign at a sign at the Philadelphia Phillies opener. An airplane flew over Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, toting another sign: "Owners and players, to hell with all of you." Those dollar-tossing fans at Shea wore T-shirts, by the way, that bore the word "greed." Can it be? Is greed dead? In the movie "Wall Street," not that long ago, Michael Douglas tried to persuade us that greed is good. Certainly baseball's owners and players took his lesson to heart. Yet, they seemed to have miscalculated. Not only will the fans forgive, not, at least not yet, they are also condemning as a sin that which was cited as a virtue only a decade ago. Watch this trend, you politicians who seek to cut poverty programs and lower taxes for the rich. Greed may be out this year. Keep your eye on baseball and look at the empty seats. Is every seat a vote? Frankly, I never thought it would go this way. Baseball lies so deep in the image of American happiness I thought if they rebuild it, the fans will come. Memories. I thought the memories would prevail, and, indeed, they have. Last summer, Ken Burns gave television an over-long account of memories to take the place of real baseball. After Burns's film you'd have thought that the fans could not wait for the real McCoy. They could. After all, what else is there to do with one's summers, the beach, the mountains, beaches? Whereas, baseball has always been there year after year, until last year. To sun oneself in the bleachers, eat junk food, and yell yourself hoarse, to watch Barry Bonds hit and Ken Griffey, Jr., hit and Frank Thomas hit and the Mets not hit, to watch Jimmy Key pitch and Gregg Maddux pitch and Mike Mussina pitch and the Mets not pitch, who could ask for more? The fans, evidently, could ask for more. They could ask for unselfish behavior from the folks to whom they've shelved out their dollars year after year until this year. They could ask for a sport to which they have given their all to give a little back. And when that sport told the fans not a chance, they decided not to ask for tickets. Take me out to the ball game -- not. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the other major story of this Thursday happened this evening. The Senate passed a Republican plan to balance the budget by the year 2002. The vote was 57 to 42. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.