The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, two Supreme Court rulings made civil rights discrimination suits harder to win. President Bush announced a major clear air program, China intensified its crackdown on students, and the war of words escalated with Washington. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we look at the Supreme Court's civil rights decision with two who see it differently, former Carter administration official Eleanor Holmes Norton, former Reagan solicitor general, Charles Fried. Then come EPA Administrator William Reilly to explain the administration's clean air proposal, a Judy Woodruff report about child care legislation, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about the worlds old and new. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The Supreme Court handed down two civil rights rulings today, making it harder to win lawsuits charging discrimination. In a 5 to 4 decision, the court said white firefighters in Alabama could challenge an affirmative action plan for minorities on the ground that it discriminated against whites. Civil rights groups called the ruling a major setback to affirmative action. In the other ruling, the court said workers who believe a seniority system discriminates against them must bring suit within a year of that system going into effect. We'll have more on the affirmative action ruling after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush declared today the time had come to clean up the air. He announced a major legislative proposal to do so, that would cut both urban smog and acid rain. He told reporters at the White House tough choices were going to have to be made.

PRES. BUSH: Some may think we've gone too far and others not far enough, but we all care about clean air. To the millions of Americans who still breath unhealthy air, let me tell you I'm concerned. I'm concerned about vulnerable groups like the elderly and asthmatics and children, concerned about every American's quality of life, and I'm committed to see that coming generations receive the natural legacy they deserve.

MR. LEHRER: Reaction to the President's proposal was not all favorable. Some members of Congress said the anti-acid rain proposals would put thousands of industrial workers out of work. Others complained about new fuel requirements for automobiles. We'll hear more about it all from EPA Administrator Reilly right after the News Summary.

MR. MacNeil: China's war of words with the U.S. escalated today as the Beijing government continued its crackdown on student workers. Student and worker groups that spearheaded the pro democracy demonstrations were banned. The government said leaders who refuse to surrender will be arrested, brought to justice and dealt with severely. For the first time the government publicly said police and soldiers should shoot what it called rioters and counterrevolutionaries. China also stepped up its shrill propaganda attacks on the dissident scientist Feng Li Gu, who's taken refuge in the American embassy. We have a report from Beijing by Jeremy Thompson of Independent Television news.

LEE THOMPSON, ITN: Prof. Feng and his wife Li Hsu Sung, a physics professor at Beijing University, have been charged with allegedly inciting counterrevolution, the equivalent of treason. The penalty could be execution. In February of this year, he became a focus of world attention when the Chinese authorities stopped him from attending a banquet given by American Pres. George Bush during his visit to Beijing. The Americans' invitation to Prof. Feng had clearly angered the Chinese. Today a super power showdown now looms as the Communist government now gets it own back. Armed troops now patrol outside the U.S. embassy. American policy is to give safe haven to anyone facing imminent danger of death for their political beliefs so they may find it impossible to get the couple out of the country. In Shanghai, a diplomatic problem for Britain too, with serious repercussions in Hong Kong. It's because of this man, Yao Yangan, who's said to have played a leading role in the student unrest. Yao was detained as he tried to leave the country for his home in Hong Kong. At the heavily guarded British mission in Shanghai, the consul was investigating the case. Though Yao had no British Hong Kong passport, the foreign office has agreed to treat any Hong Kong resident as if they were British subjects. The people of the colony will be expecting Britain to do its duty and obtain Yao's release.

MR. MacNeil: The Chinese government also attacked the Voice of America today for adding fuel to the flames of counterrevolutionary turmoil. In Washington, the State Department said calling political opponents counterrevolutionaries could not alter the fact that large peaceful numbers of demonstrators were killed by troops in Tiananmen Square. Canada today recalled its ambassador to Beijing to protest the military crackdown.

MR. LEHRER: Mikhail Gorbachev began his first state visit to West Germany today. He went directly to the Office of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The two leaders talked there for more than an hour. Later at a dinner, Gorbachev said he welcomed U.S. proposals to cut conventional forces in Europe, but he said he wanted immediate negotiations on short range missiles as well. The NATO countries recently agreed to hold off the missile talks until agreement on conventional forces was reached. The United States and the Soviet Union did sign a new agreement today in Moscow. The deal is designed to prevent military incidents from escalating into war. Adm. William Crowe, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed the agreement for the American side.

MR. MacNeil: In the Soviet-Asian republic of Uzbekistan, ethnic violence was reported spreading, with the total of 100 people killed and 1000 injured. Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Rishkov flew to the scene today after Uzbeks armed with automatic rifles tried to storm a camp housing Nezketians, a Georgian minority deported there in 1944. Rishkov is the first member of the Soviet leadership to visit the remote region since the rioting started 10 days ago.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, an earthquake shook buildings in Los Angeles today. Experts described the quake as moderate, 4.5 on the Richter Scale. There were no reports of major damage or injuries. And that's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to a new Supreme Court decision on civil rights, the administration's clean air proposal, child care legislation and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - RIGHTS ROLLBACK?

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action. By a 5 to 4 vote, the court ruled white men have a right to intervene in court approved personnel plans aimed at helping blacks and women overcome past discrimination. The decision grew out of asuit by white firemen in Birmingham, Alabama, who claimed they were victims of reverse discrimination. We look at the impact of the court's decision with two people who see it very differently. Eleanor Holmes Norton was Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the Carter administration. She's now a professor of law at Georgetown University. Charles Fried was Solicitor General of the United States during the Reagan administration, and as such, urged the court to rule the way it did today. He's now professor of law at Harvard University. He joins us from Boston. Mr. Fried, the wire services called this a decision that was a major setback for affirmative action. Do you agree?

CHARLES FRIED, Former Solicitor General: [Boston] No, I certainly don't. What the court said is that white males who may be the victims of reverse discrimination -- we don't know whether they were and we don't know whether they'd win their suit -- have to have a chance to have their day in court. They just can't be frozen out. We've got to hear from them. Whether they will win when is another question and the court did not speak to that.

MR. LEHRER: Why should they have a right to be heard?

MR. FRIED: Because if, in fact, what we have here is a quota or a government imposed preference without any showing that anybody had done anything wrong, anybody had discriminated, that violates the Constitution, and that's what the court said just a few months ago. Now we don't know that that's what happened. It may be the fire department in that city had been very bad, maybe they had been what the court called an egregious and persistent violator. In that case, the white firefighters will probably lose their case, but they ought to have a chance to be heard and they ought to have a chance to say that their constitutional rights have been violated, and that's all that the court said.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Norton, is that all the court said?

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Georgetown University Law Center: I think Prof. Fried mischaracterizes the case. These firefighters or their representatives had a right to be heard. They did not step forward. they waited until have the consent decree was signed. Indeed, there had been a trial that found discrimination in the early part of this case and most of the trial in the second part. They did not intervene when they could have. They waited until after the litigation was over and then sued the people who were to carry out the court's consent decree. They're getting another bite of the apple. They're keeping the controversy churning. It means that you can never quiet civil rights litigation. This case comes to the Supreme Court. We get a decision 15 years after it began, it keeps the work force polarized and above all, it deters people from bringing such suits since they know that even when they have show discrimination enough so that the other side says let's settle, people can come from out of the woodwork and sue the people that are carrying out the consent decree. That is not the way to interpret a statute that you want to have enforced.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, your position is that these white firefighters had a chance in court --

MS. NORTON: Precisely.

MR. LEHRER: -- and they passed it up.

MS. NORTON: They did.

MR. LEHRER: And is that not how you read it, Mr. Fried?

MR. FRIED: No, indeed not. I think what they're talking about is a general rule of civil procedure. It would apply in the same way if the state had settled with some big polluter and the Sierra Club had come in later and said, hey, this isn'tfair, these people are not doing everything they should to clean up the environment. And I don't think we'd be hearing these complaints if this is what the court said. It's a very general principle, which says that if your rights are violated, you get a right to have your day in court and you do not have to intervene in somebody else's lawsuit, you can bring your own lawsuit.

MS. NORTON: That analogy is faulty. These were members of the same fire union that had already intervened and been turned back. These were simply another group from the same work force who had not joined earlier, they said, well since the firefighters, in fact, didn't achieve what we wanted to achieve, let another group of us, of the same group, go after the consent decree, itself, and try to relitigate this matter. And thus, they are keeping litigation going that had, in fact, been signed off by a court, signed off in a sense that a court had found that discrimination had been taken care of through the party's effort to settle a suit that had been going on for some time and I must say after discrimination had been shown at a bench trial.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fried, isn't that correct? I mean, a court held that there had been past discrimination. That was the whole guts of the consent decree, was it not?

MR. FRIED: A court had held that, but these plaintiffs were not party to the judgment. Now Eleanor says --

MS. NORTON: Were they not part of the same work force?

MR. FRIED: Well, if -- you know -- if they had been represented in a class action, that would have been the end of the case and they would have lost, but the court said and the court of appeals below -- after all, this was not just the Supreme Court, they were affirming the court below -- said this was not a proper class action, and, therefore, they had to have their day in court. And everybody is entitled to their day in court unless they're represented in a class action. What you're saying is, well, they were represented. Fine. But nobody ever said that this was a class and that this was a class action. If they had, you'd be right. I think we just see the facts differently. If the facts were as you say, you'd be right but the court wouldn't have come out with that decision. What we see, in fact, is there's a kind of a pincers movement. They tell people like these white firefighters you've got to come in and intervene at the beginning. They intervene at the beginning and the courts say oh, no, no, it's too early, you don't know that you're going to get heard, so they wait. They come in later and then the courts say, oh, no, no, it's too late. So its either too early or too late.

MS. NORTON: The court gave notice when the consent decree was signed, anybody that wants to come in come in now.

MR. FRIED: But the law says --

MS. NORTON: People did not come in.

MR. FRIED: -- you don't have to. I mean, this ruling is under the federal rules of civil procedure and those apply in civil rights cases like they do in every other case. What people want --

MS. NORTON: It should be said that every court of appeals --

MR. FRIED: -- is a special rule for civil rights cases. But there is no special rule for civil rights cases. The due process and the civil rules, the rules of civil procedure apply the same way in civil rights cases as they would in any other case.

MR. LEHRER: Look. We -- the court ruled on this one today. Let's talk about what the impact of this ruling is going to be. You heard Mr. Fried, you heard what Ms. Norton said. She thinks this that this is going to -- you believe that all affirmative action cases are now in jeopardy because of this.

MR. FRIED: No, I don't think this --

MR. LEHRER: Wait a minute. I'm asking her. Is that --

MS. NORTON: This is an invitation -- look, this is an inherently controversial jurisdiction. Obviously you can't join everybody in a class action. Essentially what you're asking plaintiffs to do is to go and sue all the white males so we'd make sure that you cover everybody so there won't be anybody left out of the group that's covered. It's a signal to people where there are outstanding consent decrees and there's still time to challenge them because they can always say they weren't a part of the consent decree, they weren't included in the original litigation, and so you're going to peck the statute to death because you're never going to quiet litigation.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fried, Justice Stevens also made that very point in his minority decision today. How do you respond to that?

MR. FRIED: I don't agree with it because the important thing is the court is taking seriously the notion that you cannot have quotes and preferences unless you show that somebody has done something wrong.

MS. NORTON: Which was shown in this case, I might add.

MR. FRIED: And the people who are on the wrong side of those quotas have to have their day in court and their day in court is up to them to choose, not up to somebody else to choose. And that's the way it is in all kinds of litigation. What Eleanor wants is she wants a special rule for civil rights legislation. That's fine. If Congress enacted a special rule for civil rights cases, she'd be away free, but there isn't a special rule for civil rights cases and every other kind of litigation, and anti-trust case or an environmental case would have been handled this way and all the court said this case will be handled that way too and we're going to take those white firefighters' claims seriously. They may well lose, they probably will lose, but they're going to get heard.

MR. LEHRER: What's the harm in letting them be heard now?

MS. NORTON: The harm is not in letting them be heard now. The harm is, in fact, their grievances had been heard and they had the opportunity to come in to be heard. We're not talking about people who had no notice that a consent decree was about to be signed. They had notice, they passed it up, and now they're coming in after the litigation is over, after the consent decree has been signed, after the court has signed off on it, and saying hey, wait, wait for us. The effect is --

MR. FRIED: That's right.

MS. NORTON: -- to call --

MR. FRIED: That's how it works in every other kind of lawsuit.

MS. NORTON: Well, why is it then that virtually every court of appeals in the country has ruled just the opposite? Why is it that the Congress has appeared to want it this way because there has been continuing review of this statute, and the Congress has made it clear that it approves of the way the statute has been interpreted --

MR. FRIED: Well, I don't know --

MS. NORTON: What we --

MR. FRIED: I don't know about the Congress.

MS. NORTON: This is a Congressional statute. It is not a constitutional case. This is a statue which the Congress has intended to be liberally construed and what we see the court doing now is strangling the statute, putting procedural barriers in the way of the remedy.

MR. LEHRER: And the end result?

MR. FRIED: I think what we're seeing is that the court is saying that unless the statute says so civil rights cases are just like any other kind of case. And those are governed by something called the federal rules of civil procedure which apply to all kinds of cases. The chief justice was applying the federal rules of the same procedure.

MR. LEHRER: We're going to go around again and again here. Finally, Ms. Norton, you take this case and there was a case a week or so ago and there was a case in January, this new court has ruled in civil rights cases. Do you see this as some kind of trend that the new conservative majority is speaking out on this issue?

MS. NORTON: Oh, yes. This is unprecedented in the 25 year history of the statute. The loss of three cases, one a constitutional case of course, the business setaside case, we see a hostile majority against job discrimination remedies congealing on the Supreme Court. We see the bare substantive bones of doctrine left, but procedural barriers being put in the way of remedial relief. The trend is very disquieting. In the Antonio case decided last week, the court essentially reversed itself and all but overruled the most important decision in the field, the Griggs decision, holding that disparate impact is enough to show discrimination and you don't have to show intent. The disparate impact remains but in order to show the effects of discrimination, in order to show that impact, you have now got to jump so many barriers that it is going to be virtually impossible to do so. And the damage is so great that I predict that you will find legislation put in by the Congress to bring us back to where we were before last week's decision.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fried, where do these add up to you?

MR. FRIED: I think this is alarmist and incorrect. The court has been very hospitable to cases where there has been real discrimination. Just a few weeks ago in the Price Waterhouse case, which as a matter of fact I supported the civil rights plaintiff to the solicitor general in that case. The court is very generous to people where there was proven discrimination. What the court has done is it has set its face against compelled preferences and quotas.

MS. NORTON: There were no --

MR. FRIED: And that is what these groups cannot abide. They cannot abide that once and for all we understand now that compelled preferences and quotas in the absence of demonstrated discrimination will not be tolerated. And this case, all that it says is that these white firefighters are going to be able to show, they're going to have their day in court to show that there was no discrimination. They're probably was discrimination and they're going to lose.

MS. NORTON: Quotas were not an issue in either of these two cases and the courts have approved quotas.

MR. LEHRER: We have to go. Ms. Norton, Mr. Fried in Boston, thank you both very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the Newshour a News Maker interview with EPA Chief William Reilly, a Judy Woodruff report on the day care battle and a Rosenblatt essay. NEWS MAKER - CLEARING THE AIR

MR. MacNeil: Tonight we turn to the President's plan to clear the air, as he put it. Pres. Bush said today that too many Americans breathe dirty air and he proposed sweeping changes in the country's clean air laws. His plan targets three pollution problems: acid rain, urban smog, and poisonous chemicals in the air, some of them cancer causing. On acid rain, which damages forests, rivers, lakes and streams, the President pledged to cut in half emissions of sulfur dioxide to 10 million tons a year by the year 2000, nitrogen oxide, another component, would be cut to 2 million tons a year. The plan attacks urban smog and one of its dangerous components, ozone, by calling for calls that rely on alternate fuels like methanol and on equipment to curb gasoline emissions. On poisonous chemicals in the air, the President promised that the most advanced technology would be applied to control the poisons produced in industrial plants. He said the Environmental Protection Agency will set a firm schedule for standards to regulate the production of the toxins. In a moment, we'll talk to EPA Administrator William Reilly, but first some comments from Mr. Bush.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Too many Americans continue to breath dirty air and political paralysis has plagued further progress against air pollution. We have to break this logjam by applying more than just federal leverage. We must take advantage of the innovation, energy and ingenuity of every American. And I reject the notion that sound ecology and a strong economy are mutually exclusive. We seek reforms that make major pollution reductions where we most need them. First, our approach is reasonable deadlines for those who must comply; it is compelling sanctions for those who don't. It accounts for continued economic growth and expansion, offers incentives, choice and flexibility for industry to find the best solutions and taps the power of the market place and local initiative better than any previous piece of environmental legislation. This legislation will be comprehensive, it'll be cost effective, but above all, it will work. We will make the 1990s the era for clean air.

MR. MacNeil: One critical voice from Congress, Sen. Robert Byrd from West Virginia, predicted that the proposals would result in the decimation of the high sulfur coal industry and the economic disruption of the Midwest.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD, [D] West Virginia: This is the kind of program that will put the energy and the environment on a collision course and it may strangle the clean coal technology in its crib because of the number of plants that would have to do something by 1995. It doesn't provide for cost sharing. This is a national problem and I think everybody should participate in the cost. As it is, it penalizes a few states. It's not equitable to the Midwestern states and it's going to bring about a loss of jobs, I'd say a minimum of 8000 jobs in the high sulfur producing states.

MR. MacNeil: For a closer look at the President's clean air proposals, we have a News Maker interview with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly. Mr. Reilly, welcome.

MR. REILLY: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Is this a bargaining position? Have you deliberately set your sites so high because you expect you're going to be whittled down to a lot less in the political progress?

WILLIAM REILLY, EPA Administrator: It's interesting, we've heard a number of suggestions in the course of the several months we've been developing this legislation. One was to say that the administration would probably set the floor, the minimum proposals in its bill. I guess not nearly so much was expected of us as, in fact, we have proposed, but the answer is the President's committed to these goals, they are ambitious goals. I believe they're achievable goals and they are not by any stretch of the imagination a bargaining ploy. This is what we very much hope will be enacted by this Congress this year.

MR. MacNeil: There's some speculation that you've actually been helped in the political climate by the Valdez oil spill, by all the talk of the greenhouse effect, the global warning syndrome, a general kind of public awareness and alarm about these issues. Do you think that's true?

MR. REILLY: I think that the people of the United States are very concerned about the environment as are the people of Western Europe. The polls suggest that the public now cares more about these issues, there's a higher level of concern about them than at any time in our history, higher significantly even than in 1969, in 1970, when we had the first bit surge of environmental concern in the earth day. I think that all of that is likely to condition the response to this proposal. It's also true that people are very sensitive to the problem. We had a very difficult summer last summer. Ozone problems became smog problems, became very serious in many cities. This is the third consecutive year in which, despite all the progress we've made in the Clean Air Act in the last 20 years since it was enacted, we've seen things get worse for the health standard of ozone. So I think that all of that has conditioned the public to want action and the President has proposed it.

MR. MacNeil: Since I mentioned the greenhouse effect, what do your proposals do for that? It's an area in which the administration has been criticized for equivocation on the scientific evidence.

MR. REILLY: Well, we are very committed to a number of things with respect to the greenhouse gas problem. We're first of all committed to a framework convention or treaty that will involve all of the major countries that emit these gases to try to get them under some control. The bill itself proposes to reduce by 2 million tons per year oxides of nitrogen. That is a very significant greenhouse gas reduction right there. We also are proposing some alternative fuel innovations which have a much more benign effect with respect to greenhouse gas than gasoline, which they would replace.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go to your specific proposals, start with the acid rain one. The National Coal Association says today too much too soon, unnecessary, unduly harsh, economically onerous. How do you answer that?

MR. REILLY: You know the acid rain problem is a very serious one. It's been getting more serious for some time. We have seen thousands and thousands of lakes and streams, particularly in the Northeast but also in Canada, become more and more acetic. We've seen a number of them just eliminate altogether most of the life in them, fish life. Others are teetering precariously and likely to become acetic in the years to come. We've studied this problem now for close on 10 years. Congresses have been stalemated by concern about it but have not succeeded in enacting legislation. The President said last summer in the campaign that we've studied it enough, the time for action is now, and I think the country is going to agree with that.

MR. MacNeil: The coal industry also says or the association says that a massive sulfur dioxide emissions program isn't necessary because even though coal use has gone up 85 percent since 1973, the emissions have come down by 23 percent in that time, and they go on to say they are progressing rapidly with the clean coal movement. And Sen. Byrd says if you insist on this, you'll force a lot of industry to switch to low sulfur coal and destroy the clean coal movement.

MR. REILLY: We've got something in the range of 20 million tons of sulfur dioxides that are emitted now every year and we're proposing to cut that in half. That is an ambitious goal. It's going to be expensive. We estimate that it will impose some significant rate increases on the rate payers that are serviced by the utilities that have the plants that are going to have to be regulated. But those plants, it's important to say, have a number of options as to how they respond to this bill. They can switch fuels, and many of them no doubt will do that. They're using typically some very high sulfur coal and they may wish to substitute low sulfur coal. Some of them will elect not to do that however because their boilers have some characteristics that make Western low sulfur coal or other low sulfur coal unsuitable. They may have a relationship with a mine that they're very near to and they have very low transportation cost for the coal or there may be political calculations that enter into this. They may simply decide that they prefer to keep the jobs associated with the high sulfur coal. And in response to that, the bill is very flexible. We first of all target the 107 large and quite dirty plants, but we say to them if within your system, your own public utility company, you can get the same reductions that we specify for these 107 plants in another way from other plants, you're free to do that.

MR. MacNeil: You mean like the EPA allowing automobile manufacturers to average out their gas mileage up through the whole fleet of cars?

MR. REILLY: In Stage One, up to 1995, within the plants in their system, that's correct. Now we even allow another angle to this. We say if a governor is unhappy to see the reductions allocated to particular plants and does not wish them to take whatever move they make take, for example, switching fuels to low sulfur coal that comes from out of the state, the governor may choose to reallocate the reductions elsewhere in the state. And that is perfectly okay so long as we get the reductions that are specified.

MR. MacNeil: Has the change in the Senate with Sen. Byrd from a high sulfur state, West Virginia, no longer the majority leader, and Sen. Mitchell, the majority leader from Maine, a victim of acid rain, has that changed the political equation for you and emboldened the administration to go as far as this?

MR. REILLY: Well, I think that what has emboldened the administration to go this far is the President's very strong sense that now's the time to move on this problem, we've simply got to address it, we've let it go on too long. And there are so many reasons for this. I know that he feels personally that it's not reasonable that we should continue to inflict large amounts of acetic deposition on Canada, and exacerbate, as the Canadian prime minister has said, the one anomaly in an otherwise excellent relationship. There's concern about the declining of ecology in the Northeast in our own country and a sense that the time has come that I think the Congress increasingly will share. I shouldn't, however, suggest that it's going to be easy to get this through the Congress. There are very good reasons why it's been stalemated for so long. We have here some class inter-regional conflicts of the high sulfur coal areas versus the low sulfur coal areas, the Northeast versus the Midwest. The reality is that the people who have to bear the burden are not going to get the benefits from much of the burden that they bear. That's why it's taken so long I think to cut through this problem and that's why I can expect, we all expect that it won't be a cake walk in the Congress. We're very hopeful, however, that we'll get the support we need and the President, of course, has injected the new life and energy and excitement. I think his commitment to it is what's changed the equation more than anything else.

MR. MacNeil: On the car emissions, how do you get the auto industry, what's the incentive for the auto industry to start phasing in these cars using the alternate fuels and what's the incentive for the oil industry to develop such fuels?

MR. REILLY: One of the most successful programs this country has ever had was the lead phase down. We have reduced since I think 1974 the amount of lead in the atmosphere, particularly pernicious pollutant, by 98 percent, and the way that was done was the automobile industry was required by statute to manufacture automobiles with catalytic converters. And the energy industry was required in service stations of a certain volume size to make the unleaded fuel available to serve those cars. We would see this program operating very similarly. We have experienced supplying it, we know it works, and we are prepared to do it.

MR. MacNeil: The EPA in the Reagan years, the last decade, did not exactly have a reputation as a tough enforcer. Now you're taking on a whole new ambitious list of regulations and laws. How is that going to change, how is the EPA going to be a tougher enforcer?

MR. REILLY: Well, I think speaking just of the Clean Air Act, we're going to have a tougher Clean Air Act to enforce. It's going to have some very realistic deadlines in it in my opinion, some quite clear sanctions, very imaginative measures.

MR. MacNeil: Name the sanctions.

MR. REILLY: Well, the sanctions for the areas that fail to satisfy the ozone attainment problem for example will include the removal of the power to grant new permits for water and sewer hook- ups, the withdrawal possibly of highway construction funds, the refusal to permit new sources of pollution, new construction, new development, if necessary. The kinds of things that we're proposing though should not leave communities subject to those sanctions if they make the measurable steady progress that we're going to ask for under the bill. We provide pretty clear realistic timetables. We have more than 100 million people in the United States now living with unhealthy air as a consequence of this smog problem, this ozone problem. What the President has proposed is going to get all but three major urban areas with this kind of air in attainment by the end of the century.

MR. MacNeil: May I interrupt for just a moment briefly? Isn't the existing smog problem largely the result of the EPA being extremely generous in extending and failing to enforce laws that were already on the books?

MR. REILLY: You know, one of the things that you quickly discover. You know, there was a deadline back in 1977, I think when initially all of the cities were to be in attainment. That was extended in 1982. Those deadlines were quite unrealistic if you looked at the characteristics of the automobile situations and the economies of the cities in which they lay and you find that my predecessors, when they tried to impose some of the sanctions in Los Angeles, for example, in the 1970s, they were quickly made to understand that while Congress set those deadlines, they did not expect the really to be applied.

MR. MacNeil: I'm afraid I've run you out of time with that last question. So we'll have to leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Reilly, for joining us.

MR. REILLY: Thank you for having me. FOCUS - CHILD CARE

MR. LEHRER: Next, taking care of America's children. After weeks of being consumed by ethics matters, Congress turns to real business this week and near the top of the list is child care legislation. What used to be considered at most a peripheral issue is now considered a real battle between White House and Congressional proponents of a greater federal role in child care. Judy Woodruff reports.

MS. WOODRUFF: Eight year old Brian and twelve year old Bridget are on their mother's mind every day, especially during the time when they're at home by themselves.

SUSAN NELSON, Working Mother: They're missing out on their childhood. They're not allowed -- I cannot let them go outside and play outside without knowing that they're leaving the house, and when they come back in, they must call me.

MS. WOODRUFF: Brian and Bridget are alone between 3 o'clock when they get home from school and 6 or 7, when their mother gets home from work. For the past three and a half years, they have been latchkey children.

SUSAN NELSON: I am a single parent and they're my responsibility solely. I worry about how they are taking care of themselves after school. It's a real source of stress for me not to have that comfort zone.

MS. WOODRUFF: Susan Nelson lives in Arlington, Virginia, makes $33,000 a year working for a computer services company, and receives a small amount of child support from her ex-husband. She says she simply can't afford any sort of dependable child care.

SUSAN NELSON: The job I'm currently in I took less money to do so I would have the flexibility to come home if I needed to. My rent and my utilities are half my take home pay. We're talking the difference between groceries or child care, and I have to go with the groceries.

MS. WOODRUFF: Across the river in Washington, D.C., Sharon Johnson holds down two full-time jobs and both her daughters are looked after during the day by her brother. But before he agreed to help, Johnson despaired of finding quality child care after trying four different babysitters for three year old Tina.

SHARON JOHNSON, Working Mother: She used to cry every morning when I'd drop her off, and I just couldn't work. I just couldn't, because I was always going to the phone, calling to see what she was doing and that's one of the reasons why I just stopped until I was able to find someone to take care of her that she felt comfortable with.

MS. WOODRUFF: Johnson says without the help of her brother and Tina's father, who looks after the children at night, she would have to give up her jobs and the income they bring.

SHARON JOHNSON: I can't make it. And I guess I'd probably have to go back home and stay with my parents.

MS. WOODRUFF: When Johnson's other daughter, 11 year old Sheconia, was an infant, Johnson found a government subsidized slot for her at this highly regarded child care center, an arrangement that allowed Johnson to finish high school. Johnson is convinced that that experience gave Sheconia certain advantages.

SHARON JOHNSON: At a year old she was like, she could tell you her mother and father's full name. She could tell you where she lives, how hold she was and she could count.

MS. WOODRUFF: Johnson has had three year old Tina's name on waiting lists at that child care facility and several others since Tina was born. Johnson says she worries that as helpful as her brother is, he and other babysitters can't do for Tina what a child care center could.

SHARON JOHNSON: I don't think babysitters, I don't think they benefit the children as much as day cares, because they watch the kids, they feed them, they change them, they may take them for a walk and play with them, but they don't teach the children that they need to know before starting school.

MS. WOODRUFF: Sharon Johnson and Susan Nelson are not unique. As of last year, almost 57 percent of all mothers with pre-schoolers and 72 percent of mothers of school-age children were in the labor force. What was considered the normal American family back in the '50s, with dad working and mom staying at home, now applies to fewer than one out of every ten households. One of the first politicians to look at the phenomenon of so many working mothers was Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, [D] Connecticut: Two out of every three women in the work force in the United States today are either the sole provider for their families or who have husbands that earn less than $15,000 a year. Those are the facts. Now that's not someone in the work force because they don't want to raise their children at home; those are people in the work force because they must be there.

MS. WOODRUFF: A year and a half ago, Dodd introduced a bill called the Act for Better Childcare, or ABC, designed to make affordable quality child care more widely available.

SEN. DODD: It's very difficult to get decent child care. The notion somehow that grand mom or grand pop or the aunt or the uncle or the neighbor can do this is a myth.

MS. WOODRUFF: The ABC bill was endorsed in concept last year by Democratic Presidential Nominee Michael Dukakis, and it passed two major Congressional committees. But Republicans blocked it on the Senate floor and with the victory of George Bush, it appeared to be a dead issue. But this year the stage is set again for a major showdown. Influencing the debate are the dire observations of experts like renowned pediatrician Berry Brazelton.

DR. BERRY BRAZELTON, Pediatrician: I think women who are having to leave their babies or men who are having to leave their babies in places they don't trust are grieving, are going through such grief and such self-devaluation that we should be paying a lot of attention, 50 percent of the women in this country have to leave their babies in places you or I wouldn't trust, and they don't either.

MS. WOODRUFF: Brazelton spoke at a recent conference on child care sponsored by a group of wives of members of Congress. He and other experts expressed the toll that inadequate child care arrangements are taking on working men and women. Productivity on the job, particularly at a time when the nation faces a slowdown in population growth, and therefore a labor shortage has captured the attention of even conservatives like Utah's Republican Senator Orrin Hatch.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, [R] Utah: Acknowledging that it's better to have a parent in the home with the children, that's far better, that's what we ought to be encouraging, but since that's not reality, even in my home state of Utah, 54 percent of women working, then let's acknowledge what reality is and let's do the next best thing we can and that is let's provide some supervision and some care and some treatment and maybe some help and training for our young children who otherwise are going to be left to fend for themselves in a society that's drug ridden.

MS. WOODRUFF: Hatch says the ore he learned about the severity of the child care problem, the more outraged he became.

SEN. HATCH: Then I found out there were 20,000 in this great society of ours, 20,000 children ages one to four, who have absolutely no adult supervision during the day. Now how can a one year old take care of himself or herself? How can a four year old take care of himself or herself all day long without any adult supervision? You know, when you start looking at that, my gosh, what's going on here.

MS. WOODRUFF: Hatch is so determined to see Congress do something about child care that he joined forces with Sen. Dodd and other Democrats.

SEN. HATCH: The Congress has beencontrolled by Democrats for 52 of the last 57 years and I realize that I have to work with Democrats if we're going to do anything about the family problems of child care.

MS. WOODRUFF: Although some compromises have been made, there are still many sticking points that have to be resolved before federal action becomes a reality. In the first place, many Democrats argue that federal dollars should go to create more openings for child care in either homes or day care centers, but the Bush administration says that is the wrong way to go.

ROGER PORTER, Assistant to the President: What we are suggesting is that the money ought to go to parents and the parents ought to be able to make the choice of whether they want to send it to a religious based institution, a non-religious based institution, or have the care provided by a relative or neighbor or whatever.

MS. WOODRUFF: Sen. Dodd insists the ABC Bill would also direct the money to parents. He says what's different is that the money could only be spent at facilities that meet a set of uniform standards.

SEN. DODD: They can go to neighborhood base, church base, school base, whatever it may be. The only thing we say is that if you're going to go in that route, it must be licensed by the state, or with the exception of the grandparents, the aunts and uncles that we've included as the exception here. So that they can choose.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dodd and other sponsors of the ABC Bill did agree to loosen license requirements on child care provided by close relatives, like grandparents, but otherwise they continue to insist on a set of minimum federal standards that all child care providers would have to meet in order to receive federal dollars. The ABC Bill's proposed standards which are still being negotiated include such issues as the number of children for each child care staff person, health and safety factors in the children's environment, and the training required of each child care provider. According to Pres. Bush's domestic policy adviser, Roger Porter, those standards are the second major sticking point.

ROGER PORTER: Right now the standards are established at a state and local level, and if we impose yet another level of regulation on these institutions, what I am confident we will find is more restrictions, which raise the costs of child care at those institutions for everyone, rather than providing more funds for the care of children.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, [D] Connecticut: Well, I find it somewhat ludicrous. The very same people, many of them, will be the first ones that come up and demand that Congress have standards on the toys their children play with or have standards on the food their children eat every day and yet they argue that there should be no standards regarding the child care center where they place their child for eight hours a day. That's No. 1. No. 2, the standards are minimum health and safety standards.

MS. WOODRUFF: Pres. Bush's approach is very different. It is to make available to low income families only a tax credit of up to $1,000 for each child under the age of four, whether they are taken care of by their own parents, or by someone else.

ROGER PORTER: There are large numbers of families who provide alternative means for their children to get care. They either care for themselves in their own home, or they're cared for by relative or neighbors, and the President believes strongly that the needs of their children are just as important as the needs of the children who are going to a formal day care center.

MS. WOODRUFF: Democrats agree that those children cared for by their own parents are deserving of help but say the overall Bush approach is inadequate, because it would reach less than 2 percent of the population of the country. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, an ABC backer in the House, says the tax credit falls short on several levels.

REP. PATRICIA SCHROEDER: It doesn't create any new child care slots. The parents can spent it on anything that they want to. There's no guarantee even that they're going to spend it on child care. You could spend $1,000 on anything you wanted to.

SEN. DODD: $20 a week to a struggling family that needs child care is not exactly what I'd call help, particularly when you know that child care costs on the average of $3,000 per child per year, $20 a week just doesn't help.

ROGER PORTER: There are limits to what one can do with respect to providing financial assistance, and it's not the federal government's exclusive responsibility to provide financial support for families who have young children.

MS. WOODRUFF: Disagreements flourish over how much help Washington can afford to provide. But one argument for child care that attracts both Democrats and Republicans is its relationship to productivity. Congresswoman Schroeder points out that the United States' most successful trading partners have better child care systems than we do.

REP. PAT SCHROEDER, [D] Colorado: Every country that's knocking our socks off in trade is doing way more than anything we even have the guts to propose. And I believe if we keep deferring on this, we cannot be surprised then that we're No. 1 in divorce, No. 1 in drug and alcohol abuse, No. 1 in all these things, and if you really think people are good workers, when all that's happening at home, you're kidding yourself, and I just think that's what we have to say, forget this is a nice issue. It isn't a nice issue at all. It's how do we get America to the 21st century so that it's competitive and out there reclaiming the turf we've lost?

MS. WOODRUFF: Despite the pleas from both political parties, the White House is insisting the President won't accept the ABC approach of federal grants for child care.

ROGER PORTER: We had that debate last year. The outcome was clear. We can have that debate again this year and I'm convinced that the outcome will be equally clear.

MS. WOODRUFF: Sen. Dodd and others couldn't disagree more.

SEN. DODD: We're no longer debating whether or not we ought to do something about child care -- we've crossed that threshold question -- we're arguing about how best to do it. But the debate is over with as to whether or not we ought to do something about child care.

SUSAN NELSON, Working Mother: I think ultimately the government does have to assume some responsibility. I think they definitely have to assume responsibility in this.

SHARON JOHNSON, Working Mother: I mean, we have to work and you know, those of us who have children, they have to be taken care of, and if there's child care services and we have nobody else to care for the children, then we can't make it.

MS. WOODRUFF: For Sharon Johnson and Susan Nelson, the Bush tax credit proposal alone would be of no use. They each earn an income higher than the eligibility level of $13,000 a year. Depending on how the ABC Bill is finally negotiated, it could potentially direct some child care assistance to Johnson and to Nelson. Whatever form help comes in, it won't be a moment too soon for either woman.

MR. LEHRER: The latest version of that ABC Bill is scheduled to come up for debate on the Senate floor this Wednesday. ESSAY - OLD WORLD - NEW WORLD

MR. MacNeil: Although news from China, Russia, and Iran has dominated most of our attention recently, our regular essayist Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World Report, reminds us not to forget about another place.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: In these days of sorrow and excitement in China and the Soviet Union, why should we think about the Middle East? Our attention has certainly swerved in recent months. Eyes fixed on the amazing magician Gorbachev and the rambunctious upstart Yeltsun, on the astounding Soviet elections and the incredible eruptions in the outlying republics, in China, where the apparent new world order massed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, we glimpsed tomorrow in the students' faces, a movement like a continental shift, until the soldiers opened fire. The stern old leadership clamped down, to be sure, still, there was democracy, people power, none of the tribal mayhem associated with the Middle East. Shifting our gaze from one zone to another, we seem to have exchanged the past for the future. In fact, however, is the future on display in China and the Soviet Union, and is it really the passed on show in Lebanon and Israel? Even now, when the TV cameras are pointed elsewhere, think back to all the scenes of fury and murder that characterize the past dozen years in that area. The terrorist acts of the Palestinians against the Israelis, on buses, in schools, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the spring of 1982, recall the cast of characters, Sharon, Arafat, Assad, Gemayel, recall the main event horror, the Phelangist massacre of the Palestinians at Sabre and Chatilla, men, women and children lined up and shot, bodies rotting in the heat -- so much to remember, too much too remember; the suicide bombing of the Beirut American embassy in April 1983, the Marine headquarters bombing, a car packed with explosives, driven by a smiling fanatic straight at the men who we believed could rescue Lebanon from the past -- in 1985, the hijacking of a TWA jet to Beirut, and the murder by terrorists of an American seaman on board, his body dumped from the plane like a sack of mail -- the hijacking of the Aquille Lauro and the murder of the wheelchair bound Leon Klinghofer, whose body was also dumped overboard. Most recently, the intefada, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip throwing stones at Israeli soldiers who broke their bones and opened fire in response. Scenes indicative of the past or so we told ourselves and probably still believe -- the Palestinians versus the Jews, some 40 sects and factions in Lebanon, all versus one another, old scores to settle that never settle, too much of the past, too much intransigence and political gridlock in Israel, too much intransigence and killing in Beirut, too much madness in Syria, Iraq, Iran, the old worlds clash away and we turn away toward the future we think, toward China and the Soviets and democracy on the rise. Yet, which arena really represents the future? The forces of religious and tribal warfare that stretch so deep into history may, in fact, be the forces that dominate the next generations. Why should we think about the Middle East these days? Because there the deepest forces of human nature are visibly at work, ceaseless work, hatred in perpetual contests, well armed with newer weapons every day. If the hatreds are not brought under control, they must eventually deliver the world to chaos. If no peace is contrived for the Middle East, no peace will await the rest of us. Be amazed at China and the Soviets, of course. Cheer the new people and their new ideas, but keep your eye on the old neighborhood. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the Supreme Court said it was all right for white men to challenge court approved affirmative action programs. Pres. Bush proposed a major effort to clean up the air by attacking car and chemical emissions and acid rain, and China and the United States stepped up verbal attacks as the crackdown on the democracy movement continued. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.