The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Betty Ann Bowser, from Florida, and Ray Suarez explore efforts to reform the way we vote. Lee Hochberg reports on natural gas prices, the other energy crisis. Mark Shields and David Brooks, substituting for Paul Gigot, analyze the week of politics, and we close with another reading of a favorite poem. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush confirmed today he's not ready to increase defense spending. He said he first wants a complete review of the military. Its budget for the year is just under $300 billion, but some senior military officers and some Republicans have called for a quick boost to ensure readiness. Mr. Bush addressed the issue as he visited a school in Washington.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: There's a lot of voices on a lot of subjects regarding the budget. We have yet to submit our budget. I will later on. But I have said during the campaign, I have said since I've been sworn in, it is important for to us do a top-to-bottom review, to review all missions, spending priorities, and that's exactly what the Secretary of Defense is going to do. And before people jump toconclusions, I think it is important to get that review finished.

JIM LEHRER: A White House spokesman said one of the first priorities is to review the nation's nuclear arsenal. Mr. Bush promised unilateral cuts in those weapons during the campaign. The man involved in the White House shooting incident was officially charged today. Robert Pickett of Evansville, Indiana, was accused of assaulting a federal officer. On Wednesday, he allegedly fired shots outside the White House grounds and was then shot in the knee by a Secret Service officer. Today, he remained hospitalized, in good condition. Pickett has admitted suffering mental illness. He could undergo a psychiatric exam before any trial. In Israel today, Prime Minister- elect Sharon spoke directly to Palestinian leader Arafat for the first time since Tuesday's vote, but fighting continued in the West Bank and Gaza. We have a report from Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News.

LINDSEY HILSUM: This was the violence the Palestinians had promised, but they were, as always, heavily outgunned. Israeli soldiers on the hill responded to fire from Palestinian gunmen hiding in deserted high-rises on the outskirts of Ramallah. The Palestinians have a twin track policy. Mr. Arafat today telephoned Israel's prime minister-elect to say he would like to reopen peace talks. But the message from the ground is far from conciliatory. Clashes in Hebron, too, as there have been all week. Mr. Sharon has said he won't enter negotiations as long as the violence continues. So it looks like stalemate. This morning, Mr. Sharon offered to appoint his predecessor as defense minister, but he said he's not bound by the unwritten agreements Mr. Barak reached with the Palestinians. Protestors were out on the streets of Gaza again today -- one more dead, several injured. The Palestinians may yet live to regret their decision to reject the deal Barak offered. They can fight, they can demonstrate. But today the dream of a Palestinian state seems as distant as ever.

JIM LEHRER: In Washington, President Bush urged the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to remain resolute in making efforts for peace. Secretary of State Powell will go to the Middle East later this month. There were more layoff announcements today. Delphi Automotive said it would idle 3,700 workers for at least a week. That's nearly 7% of its US hourly workforce. Delphi is the world's largest auto parts maker. Also, Motorola will cut as many as 4,000 jobs, in addition to 6,000 already announced. That's nearly 7% of its work force. The company makes cell phones and computer chips, among other things. And that's it for the news Summary tonight. Now it's on to election reform, natural gas prices, Shields and Brooks, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - ELECTION REFORM

JIM LEHRER: Changing the way we vote. Betty Ann Bowser begins in Florida where many of the major questions arose.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESPERSON: Completely covered with flavor...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It may have been funny to millions of Americans watching TV..

COMMERCIAL SPOKESPERSON: Absolutely covered.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESPERSON: Completely covered...

COMMERCIAL SPOKESPERSON: Totally covered.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: -- but election officials in Florida were not amused. The commercial poked fun at an already painful subject - even Governor Jeb Bush took note.

GOV. JEB BUSH: When they start doing TV ads about how to count - manually count ballots -- as you've seen with those chips -- you've seen that ad, Ruffles - you know we may have reached a point where it's time to evaluate how we go about doing that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In December, Governor Bush appointed a 21-member, bipartisan task force to figure out what went wrong when Floridians went to the polls and how to keep those problems from ever happening again. The Governor was the lead-off witness at the first hearing.

GOV. JEB BUSH: It seems to me that the main mission here ought to be to bring clarity, to bring clarity where after the - in the aftermath of this election there was clearly confusion. We should bring clarity to the voting methods in this state. Every voter needs to know, when they go to vote, that their vote is going to count.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bush never gave the task force a broad sweeping mandate. But from the beginning members said they hoped to make recommendations in at least these areas: How to improve voting machine technology; how to improve voter education; and how to better count absentee ballots.

SPOKESPERSON: Members of the task force, let's get started please.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force held 31 hours of hearings - in four cities. There were 20 invited witnesses and only 100 members of the public showed up to testify. There was one public hearing in South Florida where most of the voting problems took place on election day, and it was held on the suburban campus of a new university, more than an hour from where the irregularities occurred. One witness complained about that.

SCOTT HOTCHKISS: First I want to say - and I am extremely skeptical. I don't believe the Florida legislature really want the participation of average working citizens. There was no advertisement in the newspaper, the radio, or TV about this meeting. Also the time frame -- 5 to 7pm, it's very difficult for a working man to go home take care of his family and get cleaned up and make it to a meeting like this on time.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: More distressing to South Florida's election officials was that none of them were invited to testify. David Leahy, election supervisor of Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, had to ask to be heard and was given only three minutes.

DAVID LEAHY: Well, I did find it odd that you had the task force meeting at ground zero where we had all these problems Nov. 7th and that the supervisor from Palm Beach and the Supervisor from Miami-Dade County were not invited to make a presentation to the panel. Four meetings is difficult for all these issues to be discussed, to get public input, for them - for the task force members to become more educated in the electoral process in Florida. So it is a rush job.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Former Secretary of State and task force co-chair Jim Smith agreed the group needed more time.

JIM SMITH: Realize we've got a March 1st reporting date. We only had about I think eight weeks for this task force to exist and we will have a number of areas that we are going to recommend need more study, and I'm confident the legislature is going to do that on a long term basis.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: After finishing its business, the task force has indicated it will make four recommendations to the governor and the legislature: that new voting machines be leased on a short term basis...until a more permanent long term technology can be found; that Floridians get more voter education; that more money be put into training precinct workers; and create an online voter registration database.

SPOKESPERSON: The purpose of my comment just now is to ask the task force to please not close the door to touch screen technology voting in Florida.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: During the four hearings, a lot of time was spent debating what kind of voting machines should replace the antiquated punch card system that caused so many problems. This is the voting machine the task force indicates it has settled on. It's called an optical scan. Voters fill in an oval on a paper ballot - then put the piece of paper in a machine at the precinct that optically scans it to count the votes. The machine can be set to reject a ballot when the voter marks two candidates for the same office...and can be set to let voters know when they have not voted for any candidate.

SPOKESMAN: Are we ready to vote on all three then as amended? All in favor of the motion say aye. All opposed...the motion carries. Thank you very much.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Co-Chairman Smith believes the optical scan system can be leased in time for next year's statewide governor's race and will go far to restore voter confidence.

JIM SMITH: I think we need to be careful; we need to make sure that what we do with technology...to know that it works. You know, people are going to be distrustful I think for many election cycles. We need to give our supervisors the opportunity to look at whatever I think is recommended to ensure the legislature before they enact something into law that it really is going to work so that people don't continue to be frustrated.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But not one of the election supervisors in South Florida, where most of the problems were, think the optical scan is a good idea.

DAVID LEAHY: Optical scan is also difficult for large counties to use. We have multiple languages here. We print every ballot in Spanish, English and some ballots in Creole -- difficult for optical scan to deal with three languages. My ballots are so long in this county that in some instances I will not hand a voter just one paper ballot - maybe front and back -- but two ballots. And that will confuse some voters.

SPOKESMAN: And you can pick whatever language you want. If you're in a county that has multiple languages, then there's your ballot.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Leahy and other South Florida election supervisors like the touch screen system; with it, voter simply touches the screen to select which candidate to vote for. It will not allow people to vote for two candidates for the same office and will tell them when they have not voted for any candidate...

but the touch screen system is expensive. Just to put it in Miami Dade alone would cost an estimated 32 million dollars. And the governor has already indicated there is only 30 million dollars in his next budget for election reform statewide. The task force made no recommendations on what to do about voting irregularities in predominantly black precincts...what to do about absentee or provisional ballots or how to restore voting rights to convicted felons who have served their time.

SPOKESMAN: Are there other hearings?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the hearing in Southern Florida last week, Senator Daryl Jones made a plea to tackle those issues.

SEN. DARYL JONES: The fear that I had in coming on this task force was that we were going to deal with only one side of this issue -- two sides to this issue as I see it, the people who went to the polls and voted and their votes were counted, technology solves that problem for the most part. The other side of the issue are the people who went to the polls who were valid registered voters but who were not permitted to vote; that is a problem that we have to address. We cannot let this task force go beyond -- go past this process without attempting to do something about it

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force will ask the legislature to investigate these issues further. In spite of the hearings...there remains widespread distrust in the African-American community where thousands of people have complained they were not allowed to vote or their votes were later thrown out. After the election....there were angry demonstrations.... the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit asking a federal judge to order the state and county election officials to upgrade voting equipment, to improve voter registration procedures, and better educate precinct workers.

BISHOP VICTOR T. CURRY: (RADIO SHOW) My question to you - those of you who are listening - number one, you've got - you've got Katharine Harris, who is like at the forefront of this entire debacle of the election; you've got Jeb Bush's brother benefited from it. Now, they're calling the shots.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Critics, like Bishop Victor T. Curry, say Governor Bush is more interested in getting re-elected than in real election reform. Curry runs a religious based radio station in Miami and is pastor of one of the largest African-American congregations in South Florida.

BISHOP VICTOR T. CURRY: All of a sudden now he's real patriotic and he wants every vote to count? Of course not. I mean they're playing games with us and uh, right now I'm, I'm just not buying that loaf of bread. It has too much, too much mold on it. And until they allocate the money and put the system in place, because I guarantee you even if they allocate the money, they'll tell us that it won't be in place until after 2002 because we got get him four more years.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Governor Bush's press office turned down our requests for an on-camera interview...citing his busy schedule...and saying he would have no comment on the task force until its work is done. But one of the states leading Republicans...Speaker of the House Tom Feeny...promised the legislature will undertake real reform and he defended the Governor

REP. TOM FEENY: I don't think anybody is more concerned about the integrity of the ballot box in Florida than Governor Bush. I think he takes it as a personal responsibility. I'll tell you we are going to be respectful of the recommendations of the governor's task force. The House of Representatives in Florida has its own committee set up, rules, ethics, and elections committee; we'll be studying ways to accomplish goals. I can't tell you what the exact results are going to be or what it is going to cost or exactly what the machinery may look like but two things are very important to me number one: I want to have machinery that people are going to have confidence in and if you do, your minimum level of responsibility - your intent will be properly recorded; and number two I want to minimize the need to have manual recounts.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Task force member Jones does think public pressure will force the legislature to pass something.

SEN. DARYL JONES: I think that with the eyes of the world watching you and with people being smart enough to know the difference between right and wrong that it will be difficult for this legislature to discuss those issues and come out with anything but a positive result. I believe that if that legislature decides to take any other action, that there will be heck to pay in the upcoming election. And people will understand who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

SPOKESMAN: I declare the task force meeting adjourned. Thank you very much.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force will give its recommendations to the Governor and Florida legislature on March 1st. From there, the legislature has until the end of April to hammer out a reform package. The tight deadline is to give enough time for election supervisors in Florida's 67 counties to implement the reform package for the upcoming Gubernatorial primary in the fall of 2002.

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez takes the story from there.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on ways of improving our nation's voting systems, we are joined by Sharon Priest, the Arkansas Secretary of State and head of a task force that proposed a set of general principles for election reform; and Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican from Iowa who has proposed a 12-member bipartisan panel to review the electoral college, among other things. Is it fair to say, Secretary Priest, that were you trying to do nationally what we just saw Floridians trying to do in their state with a task force?

SHARON PRIEST: That's right. After what happened in Florida, and Florida just was a good excuse that gave all of us, basically, a huge civics education, and gave all elections professionals a forum now for people to listen to what we've been talking about for years and years. Now, hopefully there's a forum out there. People are wanting to listen to the issues surrounding elections, and maybe put up the money to help deal with the issues.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, your task force of secretaries of state from around the country came up with what you call a reform resolution. What are the main points?

SHARON PRIEST: The main points are much of what we heard in the previous story: Making sure we do a lot of voter outreach so that people, especially first-time voters, are aware of how to use the equipment. That was a major issue and continues to be a major issue, especially in big elections, when, you know, we had a huge voter registration drive, a huge number of new voters who are not aware of how to use the equipment. And though for many of us, we think, well, this isn't rocket science, when you think of it, if you have never voted before and you are not really knowledgeable on all of the elections process, and you see something that says write-in, you're not aware that's for a write-in candidate. You're thinking perhaps that that's to confirm the person whose name that you marked. So I think voter outreach is very important. Poll worker training and recruitment is something that we've talked about as being very important. First of all, we have an aging poll worker population, a work force, and we need to aggressively start recruiting poll workers. And I think we may have to be creative in how we do that. We may have to start looking to high school seniors to help get involved in the process. And there has even been talk-- although this is not something that I would say the secretaries are supporting-- but there has even been talk about getting poll workers the same way we get jurors. So you can see that there is some stress felt around the issue of poll worker recruitment -- training poll workers so that when somebody comes to the polls on election day to vote, and perhaps doesn't find their name on the precinct list, the poll worker knows what to do with that voter, so that that voter doesn't have a bad experience, so that voter isn't turned away because their name is not on the list, and either it's verified right there, or through the National Voter Registration

Act of '93, that poll worker can offer the voter a challenge ballot, which is - which is part of NBRA. So that's a very important part of it -- access to the polls: Access for the disabled, access for the elderly, and access for the minority community. We feel that that's extremely important in making sure everybody who has the right to vote has the opportunity to vote.

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Leach, do you have to be careful when you take a federal look at this? This is one of the most locally controlled parts of American life.

REP. JIM LEACH: It surely is. In fact, in our system, we have a federal election as well as state elections, but we have devolved authority to conduct the elections to the states and the states then in general devolve authority to the localities. And so it's a second step away from the national government. But when you really think it through, we have a circumstance in this country where process is our most important product, and we have to have confidence in the integrity and the accuracy of elections, and we also have to be concerned about participation. Frankly, the mechanics, I believe, are fixable in a relatively short timeframe with some expense. But participation is really the major scandal. How do you get people confident that they're part of American democracy, that it's important to vote, and that their votes will be counted?

RAY SUAREZ: In their deliberations, many of the Secretaries of State talked about the specific fixes that were being proposed and put price tags on them just to change the voting machines and bring them up to standard in every municipality in the country was given a range of $5 billion to $9 billion. Do you think the federal government's help would be sought on that, and if it was, would you want some oversight?

REP. JIM LEACH: Well, the Secretaries of State have suggested that the federal government in effect would take full responsibility for it. I think the federal government is likely to take partial responsibility and seek some sort of matching support at the state and county level. But I'm confident that Congress can't duck this issue. I doubt if it will be fully funded in a one-year basis, but over the next four or five years, it's quite clear we're going to have to upgrade the mechanics of voting. But I would stress in the broad scheme of things, mechanics are a small part. The question is, how do you make democracy work? How do you get people to participate in primaries? How do you get them to feel that they're not being overrun by special interests? There are so many aspects to this election issue in America. And I think all are going to have to be dealt with in one way or another.

RAY SUAREZ: You have called, Secretary Priest, the standards, that you're looking for voluntary. Why voluntary?

SHARON PRIEST: Because the secretaries believe that the elections process is a states' rights issue. What --we also believe it's not a "one size fits all" solution to the problem. And I agree with Congressman Leach that funding is only one part of the problem. You've got three different areas: You've got people, you've got process, and you've got technology, and funding is just a small part. As we talked about earlier, voter education, poll worker training, accessibility to the polls, and Congressman Leach talked about something that is on everybody's mind. In fact, there are as many organizations who are looking into civic engagement as there are now looking into election reform. So the participation piece is a very difficult piece. And, clearly having informed, confident, and satisfied voters is a part of that. But I think it goes far beyond that, and I think people have become somewhat cynical with government at all levels. And I think we have to really work hard to change that attitude.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me ask you both. Are we in a moment where you have to act quickly because you've got the public's attention? Do you feel that the moment is lost if this grinds on into the four-year election cycle, Secretary Priest?

SHARON PRIEST: Well, unfortunately, Ray, I think you're probably right on that. I think the longer we go, the harder it is going to be to keep the level of interest up. But I think if we continue to talk about it and we maintain the priorities, we look at what are the priorities-- and having a good election is clearly a priority in this country now. How long it remains that priority depends on how quickly we act. But I would caution against overreacting, acting too quickly, and not having an opportunity to look at all the issues surrounding elections, pre-election activity, election- day activity, and post-election activity, and make sure that we look at the whole process so that it has some logic and some understanding for our voters.

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Leach, do you feel - are you feeling time pressure?

REP. JIM LEACH: I think there is a time pressure when you have an election as close as this, and it's hard to visualize a closer election in an American setting -- one can afford to have a little bit of a wake-up call and the public will stay involved. But if it is repeated without correction, the only circumstance that can develop is a kind of a corrosive cynicism. And so we are really obligated to deal very forthrightly on a very timely basis with the whole basis of democracy, which is rooted in the right to vote, and it's rooted in the sense that votes matter and count. We've all been startled by statistics that as many as 1.5% of ballots for one reason or another are discounted. That's an extraordinary phenomenon that we have to address. And frankly, it's quite credible. Now we have MIT and Cal Tech working on the mechanics and doing yeoman work. I think we'll get some funding, probably not enough, but we'll get a good start in the next year or two. But then the really hard work of participation going to be key

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Leach, Secretary Priest, thank you both.

SHARON PRIEST: Thank you, Ray.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, natural gas prices, Shields and Brooks, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - PRICE SURGE

JIM LEHRER: California's electric crunch has gained the headlines, but a wider energy problem has also struck this winter, lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

SPOKESPERSON: He told Kelly it was cleaner and better for the environment.

LEE HOCHBERG: For 20 years, natural gas has been billed as the perfect energy solution: Safe, plentiful, and cheap.

SPOKESPERSON: But the real reason Bob switched to natural gas was for those long, hot showers he

loves so much. Better for the environment, better for your budget, better for you.

LEE HOCHBERG: It's less controversial than nuclear, cleaner than coal and oil. Extracted from underground pools in Canada, Texas, and Louisiana and the Rocky Mountains, it's pumped through thousands of pipelines and used to heat half of America's households, and to run generators that utilities use to produce electricity-- seemingly the ideal fuel, except suddenly its price has gone crazy.

MAN: Well, it was just disbelief, you know, we sat there looking at trying to figure out why it was doing what it was doing.

LEE HOCHBERG: In Washington State, the Clark Public Utility in Vancouver burns natural gas to run the turbines that produce electricity for 150,000 customers. As a public utility, its mandate is to produce cheap power, but the soaring cost of its natural gas fuel caught the utility off guard.

MICK SHUTT, Clark Public Utilities: When we built the plant, we had the expectation that gas prices would be relatively low. When prices hit $40 when you're used to paying $2 or $3, obviously, that's a pretty severe bump in the road. It was a very helpless feeling to see the numbers just skyrocket.

LEE HOCHBERG: Clark Utility wasn't the only one fooled by the price surge. A year ago, an energy industry report to the federal government said America had an abundant and available supply of natural gas. Now, its wholesale price has quadrupled. Utility bills have soared for the 50 million American households that heat with gas. And even those who don't heat with gas are paying more. Millions get their electricity from power plants, like the Clark Utility, that burn natural gas for fuel. Its customers saw rate hikes of more than 20% last month. Industry experts say the price surge is just economics.

SAM VAN VACTOR, Gas Industry Consultant: We had a situation which, in the year 2000, we had high demand for the commodity, for gas, at the same time when we had an unusually low supply. The two came together, and we had an explosion of prices.

LEE HOCHBERG: Sam Van Vactor publishes an energy newsletter. He says the problem started in 1998, when the Asian economic crisis slashed demand for American energy, and the market price for gas sank.

SAM VAN VACTOR: With no incentives in 1998 and early 1999 to explore for or develop oil and gas fields, drilling went down, and with the decline in drilling, there was less developed.

LEE HOCHBERG: Gas fields like these in Wyoming sat idle through much of those years. Though major energy companies produce some gas, 60% of production is from wildcatters, or small drillers, unable to drill, they say, if market prices for their gas are low. Some took apart their rigs and sold them for parts, and others just went back to ranching. But demand picked up with the booming American economy. Bigger houses went up, with more rooms and more appliances. Industry demand soared, the Internet now sapping 8% of the nation's energy. Internet providers like this one near Portland, Oregon, laced with wires and lights, consumed millions of new watts. This year's cold winter only increased gas demand. Producers say prices rose because they couldn't ramp up the supply fast enough. But many question whether the supply problem is severe enough to force such drastic price hikes. Attorneys General from Washington State, Oregon, and California are investigating charges of price gouging. Mick Shutt, of the Clark county utility, thinks it's outrageous his utility has had to pay 20 times its usual cost for fuel.

MICK SHUTT: Clearly, it doesn't cost that much to produce gas and deliver. They're obviously making a lot of money selling a commodity for a price that's substantially higher than what's justified in the marketplace. The gas industry as a whole is profiteering in this situation, at the expense of our customers.

LEE HOCHBERG: But the industry says it's doing nothing wrong.

SPOKESMAN: You could call it profiteering, if you will. Some people simply look at it from the point of view of having been in the right place at the right time. I think there are individual companies that are doing very well, yes. Is it profiteering-- that's a question of definition, I suppose.

LEE HOCHBERG: Peter Dea is president of Barrett Resources, one of the Rocky Mountains' largest gas producers.

PETER DEA, Barrett Resources: It's absolutely false that the producers have anything to do with gas price. We are definitely price-takers not price-makers. What our challenge is, is to explore, develop, and produce the natural gas, and then we sell it into the marketplace at whatever price the market will bear at that point in time.

LEE HOCHBERG: The supply issue appears to be just a short-term problem. Accessible gas reserves underground could meet 75 years of demand. The National Petroleum Council estimates there's 300 trillion cubic feet in the Rocky Mountains alone. Extraction of gas has surged as prices have shot up -- the number of active drilling rigs in the US more than doubling in the last two years. But that gas isn't in the pipeline yet. And some reserves are off- limits, due to environmental concerns about groundwater contamination and the effect of wells, roads, and power lines on animal habitat. Producers complain environmental regulations are slowing access to needed gas.

PETER DEA: We have gotten a lot of concerns raised by the environmental community. However, they are unsubstantiated with facts.

LEE HOCHBERG: Conservationists disagree. Even with gas flowing again, a return to previous low prices is unlikely. As prices fall back from their recent peak of $40 per million BTU's, Barrett says they'll need to settle at double the price they've been the last few years, for it to make economic sense to drill.

PETER DEA: I think we're in a new gas price regime of, say, the $4-$5 range versus the $2-$3 range that we've seen in past years.

LEE HOCHBERG: Prices are likely to be fueled by the need to invest in the nation's pipeline capacity. Though there are thousands of lines, bottlenecks in the system have aggravated supply problems this winter, and make it difficult to get gas to the Midwest and West Coast. Still, the power industry is bullish on gas. Almost all new power generation in the west is expected to come from 20 planned gas-fired plants in Nevada and Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. Six generators on the drawing board for Washington State could increase gas demand in that state by 150%.

SPOKESMAN: We need additional supply in the Pacific Northwest, and this is where it's going to come from. There's no more places to build dams, we're not going to build nuclear plants, we're certainly not going to build coal plants.

LEE HOCHBERG: But some say of this winter's price fluctuations is that it's shortsighted to rely too heavily on natural gas. Angus Duncan heads a Portland nonprofit that markets renewable energy to corporations and utilities.

ANGUS DUNCAN, Bonneville Environmental Foundation: You don't insist that you're going to meet all of your new load from natural gas, because something's going to happen in the natural gas industry, and you're going to get an event you didn't anticipate.

LEE HOCHBERG: Duncan says utilities could insulate the public from price spikes by investing in wind power, which, with current natural gas costs, has become price-competitive. Windmills in California already produce enough energy to light a city the size of San Francisco, and Northwest Power, experts say, together with conservation could alleviate the need for up to a dozen new gas-powered plants. But utility managers, eyeing brownouts in California, insist it's wise to stick with the steadiness of gas, even if it doesn't seem as steady as it once did.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: And now to Margaret Warner for some Shields and Brooks.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's political analysis from syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Weekly Standard" editor David Brooks. Paul Gigot is on vacation. Well, gentlemen, week three of the Bush presidency. The theme was tax cuts. David, what are the prospects for the president getting essentially what he wants here?

DAVID BROOKS: Getting a big tax cut is pretty good. There's sort of the fear stalking the streets, the fear of recession, and there's a good chance there will be a tax cut. It is amazing how the mood has changed this week. It looks like there's going to be some big tax cut in five months. The argument is over the redistribution, who gets it, and slightly how big it is-- $800 billion or $2 trillion, somewhere in that small little ballpark there. What has happened is that after eight years of Clintonism, of triangularism, of third way, we have a fundamental argument about principle. The Democrats really believe it is only just to give that money down the income ladder. The Republicans fundamentally believe it's only just to give the people who made the money their money back. So after Clintonism, after the fudge of Dick Morris, we've got a real argument about principle.

MARGARET WARNER: So, what do you think has happened to change the atmosphere, Mark? I mean, just six months ago during the campaign, the Bush tax cut was even laughed at; it was considered completely unrealistic.

MARK SHIELDS: It was considered to be a campaign ploy to head off Steve Forbes, the millionaire publisher of "Forbes" Magazine who ran rather successfully in 1996 on a flat tax, and to preempt that issue from there. But a couple of things happened. One, George W. Bush won. He is the President, and when a President wins, it carries with it a certain imperative, a certain momentum. Two, Republicans believe in tax cuts. This is a party that can be fractious on many issues, but this is a uniting and unifying issue if ever there were one. Third, the projections for the surplus have grown even larger. And finally, as David points out, the layoffs and sort of the downturn in the economic... The loss of optimism there, there was a mixed message. On the front page of "USA Today" there was a piece today saying personal chefs are just not for the rich. And I look at this specifically. I say, wait a minute, this is supposed to be in a time of economic downturn and decline. I think it is a bold effort by this new President to close the widening and really explosive gap between the rich and the superrich. I don't think there is any question about that; that's what this is. David has put his finger on what I hope will be the debate.

MARGARET WARNER: But, David, you gave this range of the tax cut. You've got even Republicans who want to give more than $2 trillion. Can Bush even hold together the Republicans?

DAVID BROOKS: I think so at the end of the day. The Republicans make a reasonable case, if you're designing an anti-recession package, the Bush package is actually pretty lousy at it. It is phased in over a long time, there's relatively few incentives for saving and investing for capital gains.

MARGARET WARNER: It's personal income tax.

DAVID BROOKS: Personal income tax. But I think at the end of the day, they're not going to side with the Democrats.

MARGARET WARNER: But business wants all kinds of tax breaks. Are they going to resist that?

DAVID BROOKS: I think they will. There is the myth that in 1981 when Reagan had his tax plan, there was this feeding frenzy. But if you actually look at what Reagan proposed and what came out of it, the lobbyists didn't get all that much. In fact, they got less. So I think they'll be able to hold it relatively simple and straightforward. The main virtue of the Bush plan is that it is relatively simple and it flattens the marginal rates a little.

MARK SHIELDS: I disagree with David here. I think that, Margaret, what we're really talking about is the top 1%. They're the ones that took the hit on Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton raised taxes on the top 1%. That was all; nobody else. Democrats lost the Congress in 1994, probably in part because of that tax increase. I went back and checked the IRS figures, and between 1992 and 1997-- the last year for which the figures are available-- the top 1%'s income went up from an average of $398,000 a year to $518,000 a year with the onerous burdensome Clinton tax imposed upon them. They went up 30.1%, while the other groups are going up 3.6%. Now David makes the point this is their money. I don't know how President Bush is going to make the argument to this very admirable 25-year-old single mom with two kids, whom he regularly talks about, why her kids can't go to a safe, clean, superior school because we have to give a tax break to billionaires. And I think that's how the argument has to be made by the Democrats, because we're talking really, quite frankly, 40% of the benefits go to the top 1% who pay 20% of all the taxes.

DAVID BROOKS: Let me just give you my favorite statistic from the entire election year. "Time" Magazine asked people, are you in the top 1%? 19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1%. A further 20% expect to be at some point in their lives. This election gave us this referendum on the Bush plan with Al Gore talking about the top 1%. Al Gore lost people earning under $75,000 who should feel the most resentful by 13 points. And it only reconfirms an old point, that's made over and over again, that class warfare doesn't work in America. We don't take money away from the rich whether they deserve it or not.

MARGARET WARNER: So you don't think the Democrats' approach here, which is to emphasize the unfairness, is going to work? I mean, this week, Tom Daschle got up there with a Lexus and said, "this is what the millionaire will get, and the poor guy will get a muffler."

DAVID BROOKS: I thought that they had left another present for Hillary Clinton. I saw that Lexus out there at the Capitol.

MARK SHIELDS: That was a cheap shot. I don't think it is a question of class. The class war is over. I mean, the rich have won. Let's be blunt about it when you see the tax cut. It's really to comfort the comfortable. I don't... I think it is a question of what are taxes for? Are they just to return to people who are lucky enough to make that kind of money and able to pay them, or is it a question of are we going to build a fairer, more humane, more just society with better schools? How about the 45 million Americans without any health insurance? Are we going to be concerned about the hospitals that are being punished right now because we've had to put a cap on Medicare spending? I mean, I think these are the fundamental questions you have to raise, rather than just a question of are we out to get Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan or some other...

DAVID BROOKS: This is what I'm talking about. Franklin Delano Shields is making the classic argument.

MARGARET WARNER: We have the argument right here.

DAVID BROOKS: Republicans could make another argument -- if you want to have growth, if you want to lift the boats, you have got to give the people who are the most likely to save and invest the money. It is a perfect encapsulation of what we are going to have for five months. This is going to be a long process.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me shift theargument just slightly or the topic just slightly. Yesterday and today a new flap has erupted over the fact that the Bush administration has told the Pentagon, "we are not giving you an immediate infusion of money." How do you read this?

DAVID BROOKS: It's shocking. George Bush campaigned on the fact that Clinton was under spending. He promised $20 billion in spending in R&D for. He had Donald Rumsfeld working on a supplemental bill to get money into this year's defense budget because we are so under spending, and then we get into the tax issue and suddenly the White House announces we're going to take Clinton's defense levels. It is amazing. And it's raised a flap, and you almost think they have to back down. We don't need a review to know that those divisions that Bush thought were unready should be ready, so it's created a little firestorm.

MARGARET WARNER: Why do you think this has happened? Why did the White House wade into this?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I'm not clear why they wade into it. I think one of the problems is tax cut related.. They're looking seriously, Margaret, at this using up-- David talks about $2 trillion. The business lobbyists are lining up. We're not talking about Gucci Gulch. We're talking -- this plane is on the active runway, the boat is pulling out, everybody aboard the train, it is time to be boarded. They know this is the biggest tax cut. They have a President who's going to sign it; they've got a Congress who's going to pass it. So they want to get it in there. This could eat up everything, it really could. As Leon Panetta, the former budget director, former chief of staff, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and long-time budget hawk told me yesterday, he said, "I am terrified that we are going back to deficits that we spent 20 years digging ourselves out of after 1981." And I don't know if that has driven it. But David is right. They ran on the campaign about Bill Clinton, eight years of neglect of the US military. And Dick Cheney's applause line was, "help is on the way." They talked about John McCain, talked about Americans -- service people on food stamps and with no houses to live in and without adequate ammunition, supplies. And I think they're going to back down, which no new President likes to do, back down.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it could be related to the tax cut in the sense that the President doesn't want to get a spending thing on the table yet because he's trying to sell a tax cut?

DAVID BROOKS: They think we can afford it if you just go by the numbers. Alan Greenspan-- we all take our shoes off when he talks-- he says we can afford it. But it's the Reagan legacy. It would be a Democratic talking point that, "look, Reagan raised defense spending and cut taxes; Bush is doing the same thing." So they didn't want to walk into that talking point, I suspect. I'm just guessing.

MARGARET WARNER: Last thing to look at tonight. Yesterday Congress - the House first opened hearings on the pardon controversy, the pardon of Marc Rich, and the Senate is going to do the same thing next week. How do you read the upshot of these hearings, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I have to say, Margaret, to me Chairman Dan Burton of the House Committee has always been a rather ludicrous figure. I mean, after four separate independent investigations of the suicide of Vince Foster, the White House counsel, and Bill Clinton, he refused to accept the fact. He still had a murder conspiracy. He admitted on the House floor he put a melon in his backyard and fired through it to prove his gun theory. Yet this has been his vindication, if anything, these hearings. I mean, yesterday, he asked the question of Marc Rich's lawyers, of Jack Quinn and the others, if in fact Marc Rich... this case against him was so fabricated, so overdrawn and overblown, why didn't he, with the best legal counsel, come home? Why did he renounce his American citizenship? Why has he gone 17 years without paying a nickel of taxes to the American people? I mean, each passing day it becomes less defensible.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, and the "New York Times" editorialized, saying that after the hearings, the pardons look even more sordid. There were a lot of details, were there not, about the well-connected all moving around trying to make this happen.

DAVID BROOKS: This is the essence of Clintonism. The other politicians are shorted. With him the sleaze mongers are left gaping and applauding because it just goes to another level. And I think what the story does is it lasts. It lasts because Denise Rich, who was instrumental, the ex-wife of Marc Rich, is giving moneys to the Clinton Library, and it lasts because of Terry McAuliffe, who is the head of the Democratic Party, who was Bill Clinton's chief fund-raiser, and he is sort of the personification, not him alone, there are some on the Republican side too, but of the new style of fund-raising, which is more intrusive and more questionable than the old style.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree that it lasts as a political issue, because most people on the Hill seem to feel there is nothing they can do to curb the President's pardon power?

MARK SHIELDS: Yesterday, when Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, and Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, who has regularly used words, as he did in the interview with the NewsHour own Wednesday, "sensible, responsible, moderate, reasonable," on the tax cut as an indication that they think they're trying to stop something that's an 18-wheeler coming at them. But when they held their press conference to make the point about the Lexus going to the top 1%, the $46,000 versus pennies for those in the middle, they were preempted on all the cable news networks by the Dan Burton hearings. That's the guarantee. Is there going to be any legislation? No. But if you can guarantee a national TV audience, will you have the full committee in attendance, yes. And will it continue? You bet.

MARGARET WARNER: More to come next week. Thank you very much both very much.

FINALLY - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a reading from our favorite poem series; that's the project of then-poet laureate Robert Pinsky asking Americans to read their favorite poems. Tonight: a librarian from New Jersey.

JAVASHREE CHATTERJEE: My name is Jayashree Chatterjee. I live in Summit, New Jersey, and I'm a librarian at the Library of the Chatham in Chatham, New Jersey. I first came to this country in December 1990 because I was on a quest for my own identity. Since early childhood I've lived in different cultures and in different parts of the world, from the UK to the different countries in the Middle East to different places in India. (Speaking foreign language) I first read this poem in school as a child. It was only later that I really understood its meaning, when I was going through a very difficult time of my life as an adult. This poem gave me strength and consolation. About 20 years ago, I used to look upon myself as an in- between person. An in-between person was a person who was brought up in different cultures and didn't belong wholly to any one culture. At the time, we lived in Saudi Arabia,and my girls were in the sixth and eighth grade. I decided to take them to India for a couple of years. I had to find an American school in India, and there was no American school in the state that my husband and I came from. So we had to go to the Kodhi Canal, a little hill station in the south of India, miles away from any place I had ever lived in before. We were completely on our own, because my husband couldn't come and stay with us over there. This meant the family was broken up. It also meant we saw my husband only twice a year, when we went home during school vacations. The first year and a half we moved practically every two to three months. So there I was, moving from place to place, wondering if I would be able to find another house, wondering if I was being supportive enough of my husband who had always been very supportive of me, and finally, agonizing over whether my girls were going to grow up to be the complete human beings that I wanted them to be. There were four poets whose poems gave me a lot of consolation during this time -- Kipling's "If," the poet of the Desderada and a Muslim poet whose poem also offered me consolation. His poem I chanted like a prayer over and over to myself.

From Gitanjali

by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of

dead habit;

Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action-

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

JAVASHREE CHATTERJEE: I used to keep repeating these words so naturally the sentiments that it evokes are much more powerful than the English evoke from "Gitanjili." From "Gitanjili." ( Reading in native language )

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday: President Bush confirmed he's not ready to increase defense spending. He said he first wants a complete review of the military. And an Indiana man, Robert Pickett, was formally charged in the White House shooting incident. He's accused of assaulting a federal officer. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.