The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight full coverage of the Supreme Court strike-down of a religious freedom law; NASA's explanation of the accident on the space station Mir; and a debate about new air quality rules endorsed today by the President. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down a major religious freedom law. By a six to three vote it declared unconstitutional a law passed in 1993 to counteract an earlier Supreme Court ruling. The law was designed to keep governments from interfering with religious expression. Congressional supporters said they would be back to try for passage of another but similar version.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: This law simply said that government should bend over backwards to avoid infringing on everyday expressions of religious faith, even as an unintentional byproduct of good law. Now, that's not too much to ask in the land of liberty. This morning the Supreme Court turned its back on America's proud history of religious freedom. This afternoon, we stand here to begin work on restoring it.

JIM LEHRER: Specifically, today's case was a building dispute between a small Texas city and a Catholic Church. The Church sought to expand but was blocked by local ordinances. The Church sued, saying the city laws violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. In other action today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of product promotion boards created by the federal government. It said they can force private businesses to help pay for generic industrywide advertising. The court refused to uphold a $1.3 billion agreement that would have settled thousands of injury claims against asbestos manufacturers, and it ruled investors can be prosecuted for using insider information to trade stock, even if they do not work for the companies in which they're trading. President Clinton recommended new Clean Air standards today. The limits on ozone and particulate emissions were criticized by interest groups, who said industry compliance would be too expensive. The President's endorsement came after weeks of debate within the White House and just before his speech tomorrow to the United Nations Earth Summit in New York. Mr. Clinton referred to his decision at a conference on family values in Nashville.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We have high standards for protecting the environment, but we're flexible in how those standards are implemented, and we give adequate time and adequate support for technology and creativity that we can protect the environment and grow the economy, and we know we can never be put in the position of choosing one or the other, because, in the end, a declining economy has always, always led to an environment that's less clean- -always. So we have got--we've got to find a way to do both.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story later in the program. The Senate passed the balanced budget bill today. The vote was 73 to 27. It was the product of agreements reached by the administration and Republican congressional leaders. It calls for nearly $140 billion in savings from Medicare programs. The House is voting on its budget resolution tonight. Senate Democrats released their alternatives to the Republican tax cut proposal today also. It would scale back a capital gains tax cut and make a $500 per child tax credit available to an additional 10 million families. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle drafted the alternative. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said the Republican tax plan does not benefit the entire country.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Minority Leader: They have been after tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans for 15 years. That's what they want to do. That's what they think their mission in life is. And they are not interested in helping the people who need the help, the hard-working, middle income families that need tax cuts. Democrats are for cutting taxes for middle class families. And our bill does that, and I think we're going to get a great vote for it.

JIM LEHRER: House Republicans held a rally urging members to unite behind their plan. House Speaker Gingrich defended it.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: This is a balanced bill. It provides economic opportunity for more growth and more jobs and more wealth creations, so more Americans can move towards prosperity and it keeps more money at home so more families have more to take care of their children. In the end, this preserves our freedom, while allowing us to responsibly move forward in a way that is good for all of our families and all of our children. Now we just need to go in.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate began debate on the Republican plan this evening. The House is scheduled to vote on its version tomorrow. A coalition of public health organizations today criticized the big tobacco settlement. They said restrictions on future regulation of nicotine were unacceptable. The coalition is led by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and David Kessler, former chief of the Food & Drug Administration. A hearing began in Washington today to determine if the army's top enlisted man must face a court martial. Sgt. Major Gene McKinney has been accused of sexual misconduct and adultery. He has denied the charges. The presiding officer refused the defense request for a delay and ordered the government to turn over wire tap evidence against McKinney. The hearing is expected to last several days. An unmanned cargo ship crashed into the space station Mir today during a docking drill. The one American and two Russian crew members aboard were not harmed. The accident knocked holes in Mir's solar panels, cutting its power supply in half. Damage to one of the modules reduced air pressure until that section of the space station could be sealed off. Officials said the spacecraft would not be evacuated. Astronaut Jerry Linenger, who recently returned from Mir, spoke to reporters about the incident, as did NASA Project Manager Frank Culbertson.

FRANK CULBERTSON, Director, NASA Mir Program: It is a big deal. Any de-pressurization is bad, and it's--as Jerry said--one of the risks that you're most concerned about while you're in space. So you can't take it lightly. And we don't. And neither are the Russians. They are very busy working on all the alternatives available to them and on regaining as much power as possible. The situation is stable and safe for the crew at this particular time, but the next few days are going to be critical in being able to regain enough capability on the Mir to continue operations and to make plans for how the rest of the missions continue.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story later in the program. Jacques Cousteau died today in Paris. He was the creator of the documentary series "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau." It followed his global adventures aboard the ship "Calypso." Cousteau also authored several books and co-invented the aqualung device divers use to breath underwater. The exact cause of death was not reported. He was 87 years old. We'll have more on Jacques Cousteau at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then, an important religious freedom decision, the accident on Mir, and new air quality rules.

JIM LEHRER: The Supreme Court struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by a six to three vote. The law was first challenged by a small town in Texas. Charles Krause begins our coverage. FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WATCH

CHARLES KRAUSE: The controversy began when St. Peter the Apostle Church, located in Boerne, Texas, just outside San Antonio, outgrew its 230-seat sanctuary several years ago. What it hoped to do was tear down all but the facade of its Spanish-style church, built in 1923, to construct a new building triple the size. The city authorities objected, saying the structure was a historic one, and denied the church a zoning permit. But the archdiocese decided to fight, claiming the city's decision under a local preservation law was unfair and in violation of a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

FATHER TONY CUMMINS, St. Peter the Apostle Church: We feel they are applying the ordinance to the church unlawfully. I mean, their ordinance, itself, is fine, but when they apply it to the church, it's unlawful.

CHARLES KRAUSE: For its part, the town contends that the federal law cited by the archdiocese is unconstitutional.

MAYOR PATRICK HEATH, Boerne, Texas: Our position, of course, is that it is not constitutional, and that religious freedom is adequately guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at the heart of the Supreme Court case was passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1993. It was an effort to limit the government's powers to infringe on religious freedom.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The one thing that's happened since I've been President, the one thing that's happened that has--that got all the Christians together, the evangelicals and non-evangelicals, that got all the--every other religious group in America, all the strong support from the Jewish community, from the Muslims, and from others, was our attempts to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which basically changed a Supreme Court decision and says, again, that if a government of this country is going to restrict anybody's religious practice, it has to have an extraordinarily good reason for doing so; otherwise, the presumption is leave the religion alone.

CHARLES KRAUSE: It was an Oregon case that was the genesis for the 1993 law. Two state drug counselors were fired from their jobs for eating peyote. They were members of the Native American Church, and they argued that peyote, even though illegal, was central to their religion. But in 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the state did, indeed, have a right to fire them. That ruling was extremely controversial because religious leaders from many faiths said it narrowed constitutional guarantees that protect freedom of religion. Since then, the 1993 law that resulted from the peyote dispute has been invoked in nearly 300 cases, more than half of them by prison inmates, demanding such things as special clothing, food, and even feathers from bald eagles for religious purposes. One convict argued for conjugal visits, saying the Bible ordered him to multiply. At Lorton Federal Penitentiary outside Washington, D.C., prisoners asked for visitors by missionaries who later turned out to be drug smugglers. In another case, the city of Washington, D.C., tried to prevent a Presbyterian church from running a soup kitchen in a downtown residential neighborhood after neighbors objected to the soup kitchen, which serves the homeless. A federal judge cited the 1993 religious freedom law when he ruled against the city, saying the soup kitchen was a theological issue the city has no business deciding. This case and many others will be affected by today's ruling. Meanwhile, in Boerne, Texas, the old St. Peter the Apostle Church still stands, but Masses for the congregation, which now numbers close to 5,000, are being held in a nearby gymnasium.

JIM LEHRER: Now, to NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor of the American Lawyer and Legal Times. And, ofcourse, Stuart, the court ruled today in favor of the City of Boerne, right?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: It did.

JIM LEHRER: On what grounds?

STUART TAYLOR: It held that the--this 1993 law exceeded Congress's power by usurping the authority of the Supreme Court to say what the Constitution means, in this case say what the appropriate portion of the First Amendment protecting the free exercise of religion means and doesn't mean and also by invading the reserve powers of state and local governments. The specific provision that Congress was relying on as giving it power to try and overturn this prior Supreme Court decision, in essence, was Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, the enforcement clause of this-- the 14th Amendment, which incorporates a lot of the provisions of the Bill of Rights. And the court answered one of the big question marks of constitutional law because during the civil rights era the court upheld a lot of fairly far reaching laws, as Congress has broad power to enforce this, and the question has been: Does that power go so far as to let them overturn prior Supreme Court precedents, in effect, and the answer from the court today was pretty clearly no.

JIM LEHRER: And it was clear, was it not, that the majority opinion was written by Justice Kennedy. What did he say? Were the words strong and direct?

STUART TAYLOR: Yes. He was very strong and direct, and, in fact, exceeds Congress's power--were words straight from the opinion-- there wasn't dramatic rhetoric in the opinion, but it was very firm in saying the Supreme Court decides what the provisions of the Constitution mean, and if we say, as they did in this 1990 decision, that it does not create a duty on the part of government to give religious exemptions, to accommodate religions from generally applicable laws--that's what they held in this 1990 peyote case--Congress can't come along and say, well, we think it should, so we're going to change it under the guise of enforcing the 14th Amendment. Justice Kennedy said there's a tricky line drawing exercise but Section 5, the enforcement clause, does allow Congress to create remedies or to try and prevent violations and to legislate prophylactically and, for example, to ban literacy tests, which are found by Congress to be as engines of voting discrimination. But here, Kennedy said, they're imposing this sweeping nationwide obligation, and there's no evidence, he said, that there's a big problem of religious persecution in this country that needs to be solved by having a prophylactic law.

JIM LEHRER: Now, there were three dissenters, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was particularly outspoken in her dissent, was she not?

STUART TAYLOR: Yes, but the ground of her dissent was not that she thinks Congress has power to change the meaning of the Constitution. She said, "I agree with the majority on that." She said, "I think the Smith decision, the Peyote decision in 1990, was wrong. I thought so then. I thought so now. I think the First Amendment to the Constitution, the free exercise clause, was intended by the framers"--and she went into a lot of history-- "to create a duty to create religious exemptions to accommodate religious practice from generally applicable laws, so that Jehovah's Witnesses don't have to swear loyalty oaths if it violates their religion, or so that Jewish soldiers don't have to take off their yamikas if it violates some hat regulations." And there are lots of examples. And she said, "For that reason, I think we should have this case reargued and overruled, that 1990 decision, on our own. And if we do that, this law will either be unnecessary, or will be merely a statement or something close to a restatement of what the court's own doctrine holds."

JIM LEHRER: Now, of course, when the Supreme Court makes a ruling, like it did today, there's no place to go for redress, except back to Congress or a constitutional amendment, is that right?

STUART TAYLOR: I think there are a number of options. One is to try and get Congress to pass a narrower law. I mean, one of the, of course, objections here was to--this law basically just said-- just said we wish, you know--we hereby say that anytime any generally applicable law burdens religion it's unconstitutional, as it can be justified by compelling state interest and as a least restrictive means. Basically they said we want to overrule what the Supreme Court did. And everywhere in the country, applicable to every state and local government, every zoning dispute could get into it, every prison can have people suing about how long their hair can be. The court said that there isn't a big problem that we need to solve that way. If, for example, you can show that Rastifarians are being persecuted for trying to grow their hair long, or that there's some problem and legislate more narrowly, the court might uphold it. Also, this still leaves states and local governments totally free to pass legislation of this kind, because all the court is saying here is Congress can't do it, can't impose it on state and local governments.

JIM LEHRER: I see. Okay, Stuart, don't go away. Marci Hamilton argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the city of Boerne, Texas. She's a professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Rabbi David Saperstein is head of the Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism; he teaches at Georgetown University Law School. Rabbi Saperstein, what will be the practical effect of this

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, Religious Action Center: It means that every religious person, every religious institution, church, synagogue, mosque, temple, will now be at risk; that any officially neutral government law that interferes in very real terms with their religious liberty, there will no longer be any constitutional protection for that religious liberty. This is a devastating blow to the concept of fundamental rights in America and to religious freedom in America.

JIM LEHRER: Marci Hamilton, a devastating blow?

MARCI HAMILTON, Cardozo School of Law: Not at all. This case is, in fact, a blow for liberty because it stands for the proposition that Congress cannot at the urging of interest groups amend the Constitution without going through the usual constitutional procedures. This is a decision that protects the people from congressional action that will subvert their liberties. I deeply disagree about that particular characterization, and the question of whether or not under the Smith rule, which was the peyote decision rule, we will have more or less religious liberty simply hasn't been answered. We don't know the answer to that question yet because RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, was passed so quickly after the Smith rule became the law.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Well--

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Rabbi.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Well, that's not really so. There were scores of cases that we likely would have won in-between the Smith decision and the passage of RFRA. And since, RFRA, we've been winning a number of cases, some of which were cited in your earlier reports. And this will have a real impact on religion. Let me take some real examples here. If the state of Connecticut passed a regulation saying that people could not wear--state employees cannot wear hats indoors, and traditional Jews could wear yamikas under the Constitution, if the state of Tennessee raises its drinking age to 21, and without an exemption for religious practice, then a 20 year old Catholic could not take wine and communion; a 13 year old boy cannot use wine at his bar mitzvah. Well, those are real examples that actually happened at an earlier stage. I could give you scores of examples where people would not be able to live out their religious lives.

JIM LEHRER: Marci Hamilton, are those real examples? Are those real risks that now are there as a result of what happened today?

MARCI HAMILTON: Those are ridiculous examples of what might happen. The political process won't let those sorts of things happen, and we know that because after the Smith or peyote decision came down, we saw both the federal government and the state governments in many states providing for exemption. The complaint about the fate of religious liberty has really nothing to do with the case that came down today. Today the court said only that Congress does not have the authority to alter the Constitution unilaterally. It said nothing today--the Supreme Court said nothing--about the particular fate of religious liberty. And as I said before, we don't know the fate of the Smith decision because we haven't had enough time to assess it.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Marci Hamilton, how would you interpret today's ruling--the effect today's ruling would have on the two examples that the Rabbi just mentioned?

MARCI HAMILTON: Well, it's not clear right now. If there were a raising of a drinking age for the purpose of suppressing a particular religion, that, of course, would be unconstitutional under the court's decision in Church of Lakumi Babaluai.

JIM LEHRER: That's a specific case, right?

MARCI HAMILTON: That's a specific case.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

MARCI HAMILTON: In which the Supreme Court has said you may not discriminate against religion in any way, shape, or form. So the protection against discrimination remains very strong. The question is whether or not the political process can fix the potential for some cases not to be protected by the Constitution. And, as I said, we don't know the answer to that because Smith was not the law for very long.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Let's be clear. Marci just acknowledged it wasn't a ridiculous example. If the intent wasn't to suppress religion but they just passed the law and the effect was to limit religion, Marci just acknowledged that religion would be limited. Let me explain what this is really about. Our fundamental constitutional rights, our fundamental liberties in America, are not subject to majoritarian view. They are not subject to the majority vote of the legislature. I think the vast majority of Americans would hold to the belief that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, our most cherished liberties, should not be subject to majoritarian rule and the government shouldn't be able to intervene unless there was an extraordinary reason to do so. That's what this battle is about. We tried to restore on a legislative grounds the kind of protection that constitutionally had existed before.

JIM LEHRER: What about Ms. Hamilton's argument that this case was really about congressional power versus court power, not religious freedom?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: There is a whole history of the Supreme Court saying there is a floor of protection given by the Constitution; if you want higher protection, go and pass it legislatively. That's what we did. For technical reasons--Marci made a very eloquent argument before the court--for technical reasons, that got struck down here. But we can now go out to the states and pass state legislative protections and constitutional protections. We can re-litigate this and bring Smith back. It's interesting to note that in response to Sandra Day O'Connor saying it's time to overturn Smith, only Scalia and Stevens joined in a concurrence answering that. We may well be able to re-litigate Smith, and I would presume that Marci wouldn't have a problem with that. I don't--I would hope she wouldn't be on the other side--

JIM LEHRER: Let's ask her.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: --of saying our fundamental rights should have the highest level of protection.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Hamilton.

MARCI HAMILTON: I think we have reached a point when we need a national debate about the appropriate level of religious liberty, and the appropriate relationship between church and state. We did not have that because when the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed, Congress simply responded to pressure to overturn the Supreme Court decision and did not ask the question of what's the state of religious liberty. I do not know for a fact what the state of religious liberty is in the United States and whether or not we need the sort of overbearing protection that strict scrutiny provides over and against the people's elected representatives.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Hamilton, let me reverse this. You represented the city of Boerne.

MARCI HAMILTON: I did.

JIM LEHRER: All right. After this decision today, let's say that the Catholic Church in Boerne still wants to move ahead. As a result of this decision, how might it go about doing that?

MARCI HAMILTON: If it still does not want to negotiate?

JIM LEHRER: No. I mean, if they want to go ahead and build that building, is there some other avenue available to them through--

MARCI HAMILTON: Well, let me--

JIM LEHRER: --state procedures in Texas, or something like that?

MARCI HAMILTON: Well, my understanding is that the city has already asked them if they would sit down at the negotiating table, now that the decision is down, and to come to an amicable solution. So I'm hoping this will be solved without RFRA in the picture by reasonable minds getting together and doing what's best for everybody. And the problem with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, of course, was that it told churches and synagogues, et cetera, that they had a right not to get along with the community. What happens now, I hope, is that people will come to the table and resolve these very important issues amicably and that they won't have to go back to the court. I think that's unnecessary.

JIM LEHRER: Rabbi Saperstein, do you believe that a church like that one in Boerne, Texas, should have the right to ignore city zoning, as they did, because they're a church?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Unless--

JIM LEHRER: Because they're a church?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Yes. Unless there is a compelling interest that the government has. Let's say that the zoning--the expansion would so overwhelming the neighborhood as to make it dysfunctional and impossible to maneuver there. Just for the sake of historical preservation they--I don't think that you should be- -that churches should be limited to change a church in order to accommodate its parishioners. The fact that now that church cannot hold Mass in the church because of this government regulation--that doesn't have a compelling interest--is to me absurd. And in terms of Marci's point about a national debate, RFRA didn't sneak through the Congress. It had wall to wall support of every religious group in America, the religious right, the religious center, the religious left. And it took three years of intensive, detailed debate before it passed. And after that debate, the Congress passed it almost unanimously. The Congress, the religious groups in America, the civil liberties groups in America, on the right and left, they all agree what the standard ought to be for fundamental rights. Religious freedom is a cherished history in America. We should restore it.

JIM LEHRER: What are you going to do now, Rabbi, you and folks who feel the same way you do?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Well, we are going to go to the states- -one of the holdings in the case we--the federal government can't impose this burden on the states--so we're going to go to the states. And as a number of states have already responded to the Smith decision by passing a RFRA type amendment, or having its court rule under its constitution--Massachusetts, Minnesota, and others--we're going to ask the 50 states to pass RFRA's. We're going to go back to the court and re-litigate the underlying Smith decision and perhaps we'll look, as Stuart suggested, at specific, particularly harsh abuses that result from this ruling, and pass more narrowly tailored federal legislation.

JIM LEHRER: Marci Hamilton, what do you think of that approach?

MARCI HAMILTON: I think every one of those points is exactly the way to go. I think that they ought to go to the states and speak to the states directly. I think that the people of the United States ought to be alerted to what's going on; that there is a claim that there is a deficiency in religious liberty; and they ought to have a say in it. So I would say that all of those would be good ideas. I do not think that we need an amendment to the Constitution, which has been suggested, but I don't--as I understand it, the relevant interests aren't united enough to get one particular amendment proposal up, so I would doubt that we would have an amendment in any event.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you both very much. Just back to Stuart before we go. Is it--is it correct to read the decision of the court today one way or the other about what it believes about the deficiency of religious freedom in the country?

STUART TAYLOR: Well, certainly the majority thinks that there's enough religious freedom; we don't have to worry about it being stamped out. Part of the background of this is when there are big mainstream groups like the Catholic Church, or mainstream Jewish denominations, usually they'll be able to get what they want from local authorities. Don't hold your breath for any raids of people taking communion, where even if there is a 21 liquor law. The strongest argument for the dissent here was look at small religious groups that do things like animal sacrifice, or smoking peyote, that the majority doesn't identify with. How are they going to get any help from the state legislatures? And that's the argument against where the court went in Smith and where the court stayed today, and sooner or later, that argument could possibly prevail in an effort to overturn Smith. But it's clear a majority of the court said if Smith's going to be overturned--they were 7-0 on this with 2 not commenting--if we're going to overturn this rule, we're going to overturn it. Congress isn't going to overturn it.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, Ms. Hamilton, gentlemen, thank you.

MARCI HAMILTON: Thank you. FOCUS - DANGER IN ORBIT

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Mir accident and the new air quality proposals. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the Mir story.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As we reported earlier, a cargo ship crashed into the Russian space station Mir today, damaging one of its interlocking modules and forcing its three astronauts, including the American, Michael Foale, to seal off part of the ship. Mir has circled the Earth more than 64,000 times since its launching in 1986 and has been plagued with problems in recent years, including a fire in February, a failure of oxygen generators in March and a cooling system leak in April. Frank Culbertson, director of NASA's Mir program, is here to explain what happened today. Thanks for being with us, Mr. Culbertson.

FRANK CULBERTSON, Director, NASA Mir Program: My pleasure, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Would you go through the sequence of what happened today when this cargo ship was docking?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Sure. As I understand it--and, in fact, we were briefed on it ahead of time--they were doing a test of a manual docking system for their Progress resupply vessel. They were bringing it in to the docking port. I have a model just next to me here that shows where the Progress would have re-docked. They had undocked it yesterday, and it stayed in the vicinity for 24 hours, and then they were bringing it back in. At some point during that approach they lost control of it. It was not--they were not able to break it sufficiently or control it sufficiently to continue a successful docking. In the course of doing that, it passed just beneath this port that you see here and impacted the solar array on the specter module, which is one of the laboratories attached to the node at the end of the base block. It also impacted a radiator here and then passed through the arrays and went on passed the station and now is safely well away from it and back under control by Mission Control Center in Moscow. It was being controlled by the commander on board at that time via a video system, and he was looking through the camera at the target.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Just so I get this clear, the cargo ship had come and docked, got something, and this was a test the next day, and this was a manual docking. They were testing a system, is that right, or were they working it manually at this point?

FRANK CULBERTSON: That's right. It actually had come up in April and brought a number of supplies and logistics up to the Mir. They undocked it yesterday, and then the plan was to re-dock it using the manual system, which is more fuel-efficient in theory, and then bring it back into the docking port for a couple of days. And then Friday they were going to launch a new Progress vehicle, undock this one for the final time, and de-orbit into the Earth. It didn't really contain anything of value to the station at this point, so the loss of it or the lack of docking in itself is not a loss to the crew on board.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. So what happened? The crew felt- -according to reports--felt air pressure weaken, is that right, and then what happened?

FRANK CULBERTSON: That's right. Sometime during the impact a leak opened up in the specter module, and it began--the pressure began dropping in the station. The crew recognized that it was in this module, so they disconnected what other wires or cables they had going through that hatch and closed the hatch on that module, which isolated the leak, and then allowed them to remain at a fairly nominal pressure in the rest of the station; however, the specter module, itself, did leak down to a vacuum during that time. It was no longer accessible by the crew.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So it's kind of like a ship where they sealed off a place where there is a leak, and the rest of the ship is okay?

FRANK CULBERTSON: That's basically it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What's happening?

FRANK CULBERTSON: It's like on a ship.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What's happening in the rest of the ship? Is the power down? That's what we've heard.

FRANK CULBERTSON: That's right. Because the specter has four very new arrays on it, it was providing about half the power that the station does consume. The other arrays are mostly older, though there are a couple of new ones here, but they are not as large or as efficient as the ones on the specter. So that's a pretty significant loss to a station of that power generation capability. So they had to do it an orderly power-down where they shut down some of the systems. They also shut down the motion control system which they use momentum wheels to do efficient and easy control of the station. But they shut those down. At this time they will take the station and point it in the most efficient sun-gathering attitude, and so they can generate power to recharge their batteries and get back into--as much as they can--normal operations on the life support and motion control system.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How does it affect them individually, the lack of power? Do they have to move more slowly?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Not really. I mean, they probably will not exercise for a couple of days just to keep the metabolism rates down and the CO2 generation rates down. And they've got some of the thermal controls shut off. That, I don't believe, is a critical problem now. The main thing is that to not generate a lot of heat, or turn on a lot of electronic devices, and conserve power for the batteries until they are fully charged again.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What's lost in the module that's sealed off, what kind of experiments were being done there?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Well, it's actually about half the complement of American experiments on board, most of them in the life sciences disciplines, and there is no access to those right now, so they may be lost for the duration. In addition, that's where Mike Foale's living quarters were, and so some of his personal belongings and things such as that are in there, as well as some of the computers that he used for support. So we--we do see that as a loss and something we're evaluating now as to how we will handle that in the future and how we need to get more things up to him.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is there any talk about evacuating the space station?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Not really. I mean, that's always the action of last resort, but--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We should explain that--

FRANK CULBERTSON: --they could very well do that if they were not able to seal the leak; however, at this time things are stable and they will continue to work the problem until it becomes apparent that they can't, or that they are successful.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry. Explain how it would be evacuated.

FRANK CULBERTSON: Well, if they had to evacuate a station, they do have the Soyuz vehicle at this end of the station, which is still perfectly useable and ready to be manned, if necessary, and they can leave in a few minutes, if necessary, though it would normally be done--probably be done in an orderly fashion if a decision was made to do that. But it's available. It has spacesuits in it. It works on its own power, and is their normal means for returning to Earth in a normal, at the end of a normal flight.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Given all the problems, the fire which recently, I guess, in an interview, the American astronaut, Jerry Linenger, who was there, has reported that the fire in February was quite serious--given the fire and the other problems that the space station has had, is it just too risky for the astronauts there now, do you think?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Not at this particular time, and we always look at what risks are involved, and space flight is full of risks, most of which we manage fairly well. Fire and depressurization on a station are the two most serious problems we're concerned about, and unfortunately, we've experienced both of them this year on board the Mir. And who's to say, we might experience them in the future on ISS, and these are experiences that will serve us well in dealing with that, but there's no doubt the fire was a serious situation. There's no doubt that the depressurization is serious for the program on board the Mir, but the safety of the astronauts right now is not compromised, but we are looking at what we do in the future to make sure that they are able to continue operating.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Mir is eleven years old, and, as I understand, it was thought it would just be up there for five years. Is anything about this accident related to its age?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Well, in point of fact, the Mir was originally certified for five years. The Russians always do initial certification on their hardware and then continue operating it as it proves to be safe and they can re-certify it, which they have done with the Mir. I don't believe this particular incident was related to age at all. This could have happened the first week the Mir was up there, and it had to do with an operational test of a resupply vehicle, it struck one of the newest modules, the specter, and it could have happened at any time. The problem will be in how well the rest of the modules hold up during this time and are able to produce power and provide life support. And that's something that the Russians are evaluating very carefully and almost 24 hours a day right now until they get the answers to that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And they'll make that decision, an evacuation decision?

FRANK CULBERTSON: Well, we will work together on where we stand after a few days, when they have all the information available to them. It'll take a couple of days to do full recharge of the batteries and to assess what the capabilities are for the near- term.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Frank Culbertson, thanks for being with us.

FRANK CULBERTSON: Sure. FOCUS - CLEARING THE AIR

JIM LEHRER: Now the President's endorsement of air pollution regulations. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

CAROL BROWNER, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency: EPA is doing precisely what the law, the Clean Air Act, tells us to do, and that is protect the health of the American people above all else.

KWAME HOLMAN: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner proposed tightening air quality standards last November. And ever since, she has pursued a high profile defense of tougher clean air regulation. Arrayed against her has been a broad group of opponents who say meeting the new standards would harm the economy and force major lifestyle changes on millions of people. The new regulations would require cutting currently acceptable levels of smog or ozone. Ozone is the chemical soup of gases emitted by heavy industry, utilities, and autos that cooks in the sun on hot days. Also targeted by the standards is soot, tiny airborne particles scientists call particulate matter. Under the new standard very minuscule particles would be regulated--pieces of soot as small as 1/28th the width of a human hair. Public opinion polls show most Americans believe the air they breath is gradually getting cleaner. But Browner has taken on the difficult task of telling them that even though the air is cleaner, the particles and chemicals suspended in it put them at increased risk. CAROL BROWNER: What has changed is the science. Science is always coming up with better ways to measure the quality of the air we breath, as well as how people are affected by polluted air and at what levels.

KWAME HOLMAN: Jonathan Samet at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health practices that science. He's studying data from six U.S. cities that show deaths increase after high pollution days.

JONATHAN SAMET, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health: We knew in the past that high levels of air pollution could cause extra deaths, but this recent finding, something that has unfolded over the last eight to ten years, has been a bit surprising because we've seen these effects at levels that are much lower than before, and levels that were once considered to be safe.

KWAME HOLMAN: The EPA says meeting the proposed clean air standards could prevent 15,000 premature deaths a year, reduce asthma episodes by more than a quarter million a year, and save billions of dollars in medical expenses. As the mid July deadline for the EPA to act on the proposed regulations approached, the White House reportedly was refereeing a fierce fight over the proposal. It pitted the EPA against other federal agencies concerned about jobs and economic development; the industrial Midwest against the Northeast, and business groups against health organizations.

C. BOYDEN GRAY, Citizens for a Sound Economy: This is the biggest industry coalition I've seen put together since back the late 70's.

KWAME HOLMAN: The opposition ranges from heavy manufacturing and farming to utilities, to small businesses like dry cleaning. They've sponsored a nationwide campaign, spending millions to block the EPA proposal.

SPOKESPERSON: [Citizens for a Sound Economy] So the EPA is either going to have to pave over everywhere these particles come from, including Mother Nature, or, as usual, take it out on those of us who are barely part of the problem.

KWAME HOLMAN: Business and industry have been joined in opposing the clean air standards by state and local elected officials. Just yesterday, the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors made its opposition known. In fact, feelings about the regulations often break down along regional, rather than political party lines. The regulations are opposed by leaders from the Midwest, where nitrogen oxide from the tall stacks of power plants helps create severe ozone episodes like the one in this animation. That pollution drifts eastward and contributes to already high ozone levels on the Eastern seaboard. Leaders there often support the tougher clean air standards.

FRANK SHAFROTH, National League of Cities: In the East Coast, for the most part it doesn't matter whether you're liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, you like these rules because you want to try and have some sort of fence to stop that stuff in the Midwest from coming East.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today President Clinton ended weeks of suspense by announcing he basically will endorse the stricter air quality standards proposed by the EPA.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And I know that those who have opposed the higher standards, I want to just tell you, read the implementation schedule; work with us. We will find a way to do this in a way that grows the American economy, but we have to keep having a clean environment if we want healthy children.

KWAME HOLMAN: But the President may modify the EPA plan, reportedly to give states more flexibility to meet the new clean air deadline.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has more.

MARGARET WARNER: The EPA is scheduled to publish the new rules by July 19th. Unless Congress or the courts intervene to block the regulations, state and local governments will have to begin immediately drawing up plans to comply. But EPA officials say the new rules won't be fully implemented until at least the year 2003. Here to discuss their likely impact are Paul Billings, deputy director of government relations with the American Lung Association, and Wendy Gramm, an economist and a former budget official in the Reagan administration. She's now director of the Regulatory Analysis Program at George Mason University. What's going to be the most significant practical impact of these new rules?

PAUL BILLINGS, American Lung Association: In communities across the country people will know when the air is unsafe to breathe, and start working to clean up the air and protect children's health and protect the health of old people, and protect the health of everyone. It's a positive step for public health, and that's the effect.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see it?

WENDY GRAMM, Economist: I see it as not only will it be costly, but it will not improve public health and EPA's own science advisers have said that EPA's proposals will not be significantly more protective of public health than the current proposals, which are producing clean air. In the case of ozone, public health will be harmed because ozone is bad, but so is melanoma, and you're going to have more skin cancers and more cataracts.

MARGARET WARNER: So you mean because ozone actually protects against ultraviolet rays?

WENDY GRAMM: It is screening, much as the way that stratospheric ozone in the upper atmosphere, it is screening it, but so does tropospheric ozone, which is at this level. So you have to look at the tradeoff. We're not saying ozone is good, but it's going to create twenty-five to fifty more melanoma deaths per year as a result and will result in thousands of new cases of other kinds of skin cancer, as well as cataracts, and those things need to be considered.

PAUL BILLINGS: That's true. If you can't see the sun because the earth is too dirty, you won't get skin cancer. That's an absurd argument. What we're talking about is ozone at the ground level that affects the lungs, makes people cough, wheeze, sends kids with asthma to the hospital. This is an important public health step. And, yes, we are concerned about skin cancer, but more air pollution is not the cure for skin cancer. Protecting the ozone level in the upper atmosphere is the way to protect people from skin cancer.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, how can there be such a difference between the two of you as to whether there is a public health benefit? You say there is absolutely none?

WENDY GRAMM: EPA's own science advisors wrote in both of the closing letters--the Clean Air Advisory Committee that was mandated by Congress--they have stated that EPA's proposals were not significantly more protective of public health in current standards. And, indeed, the air is getting cleaner under the current standards. And so thereis a lot of reason to say, why don't we continue to let the air get cleaner, let us really understand, because there's a lot of uncertainty which the science advisors point out and the scientific communities point out. There's a lot of uncertainty about what can happen. In fact, EPA's getting some $25 million to study the effects of those particles.

PAUL BILLINGS: That's not quite true. The EPA's scientific advisory committee voted unanimously telling EPA to set an eight hour ozone standard, and 19 out of 21 of those scientists said set a standard for the fine particle. So there is strong scientific consensus for tighter standards. The health research shows that.

MARGARET WARNER: Are you saying that lives will be saved?

PAUL BILLINGS: Lives will be saved. EPA estimates 15,000 lives we save from the soot standards and thousands of lives we save from the smog standards.

MARGARET WARNER: And you don't agree?

WENDY GRAMM: Actually in the science advisors with regard to particulate--the soot--they said there's some cause for concern, but they could not come to consensus about a level or the form of the standard. As a matter of fact, they testified in Congress. Only two out of the twenty-one advisors on that committee were in favor of a proposal that included the range EPA was considering.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me turn to another issue that came up in the advertising campaign, which was what kind of lifestyle and industry changes would be required. What will be required? I mean, these new regulations are now going to go into effect.

WENDY GRAMM: Billions of dollars, that's right. And let's put it this way. We have not met the standards for the current Clean Air Act and the current standards. EPA in its proposal has no idea how it's going to meet the proposals. In fact, their cost estimates--they look at the year 2007 and they simply truncate, saying, we can't estimate those costs because they have no idea what the technology will be.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you have an estimate as to cost?

WENDY GRAMM: Our estimates are on the order of ten times what EPA's will be--$55 billion, a conservative estimate, for particulates, and on the order of say between 9 and 83 billion dollars for ozone. And the fact of the matter is that that's going to be very costly; if, for example, all of California went to totally electric vehicles, we still would not meet the standards.

PAUL BILLINGS: Viewers on the East Coast can look out the window today and see the air pollution problem--a major air pollution problem. The way to solve this problem is to clean up the dirty power plants that were grand-fathered under the Clean Air Act in the Midwest; they're still burning dirty coal without any pollution control technology. Cleaning up dirty diesel buses and trucks will help a lot. So those are the big sources. EPA--the big guys that have been unregulated, who have an unfair competitive advantage; on the East Coast those sources have cleaned up. In the Midwest, they haven't, and they all contribute to the air pollution downwind.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, what about some of the other charges in the ads, for instance, that we'd all have to shut down our outdoor barbecues or farmers couldn't plow on dusty days?

PAUL BILLINGS: These are ridiculous claims. EPA has said that's not what this is about. Local communities help write their plans, and there's not a mayor or a governor or a state senator in this country that's going to vote to ban barbecues. In California they have reformulated the barbecue lighter fluid, consumers didn't even notice, and reduced air pollution quite a bit. So we're not going after barbecues. We're going after big, dirty trucks, big dirty power plants. That's where the pollution--

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see lifestyle changes coming?

WENDY GRAMM: Absolutely. Under the current clean air standards, we have not reached them yet, and we can continue to have cleaner air, as we have over the last decade. And we need to continue that trend; however, right now we can't meet the standards, and if you impose these new standards, it's only going to create a lot of confusion, and, indeed, what will happen is we cannot meet the standards, then each state will have to come to the federal government through implementation plans, and any time a new plant wanted to be opened, they will have to come to the federal government or to a bureaucrat to get their approval and--

MARGARET WARNER: And is that different from the way it is now?

WENDY GRAMM: If it--that's the situation now if an area is not meeting the standards. And no area--you know, three quarters of the areas will not meet the standards in the EPA's own estimation.

PAUL BILLINGS: We will see lifestyle changes. Kids with asthma won't have to go to the hospital and the doctor's office on smoggy days--old people won't die early--that's what we're talking about. We're talking about protecting public health so lifestyle changes will be for improved public health.

MARGARET WARNER: But why then do you think the U.S. Conference of Mayors came out against these?

PAUL BILLINGS: There's been a multi-million dollar, thirty to fifty million dollar scare campaign targeted at these mayors, saying that we're going to close your cities down. What President Clinton said today was we're going to be flexible and work with the cities on implementation; we're going to show flexibility. Mayors should be for this. Mayor Giuliani is for this in New York, because he knows that if we don't clean up the pollution in Ohio, New York doesn't get clean air. Sen. D'Amato is for it for the same reason. We're seeing lots of support in the East and the West for cleaner air and for these standards because they know that it can't get clean air unless everybody plays by the same set of rules and helps.

MARGARET WARNER: Does the stretched out--I mean, the President's offer to stretch out the deadlines and work with industry in the cities--does that ameliorate the situation in your view?

WENDY GRAMM: I think it's going to make it worse. That could, in fact, even reduce the environmental effects because there's going to be confusion. There is going--you know, why clean up under the current standards when you might not have to later on; it's going to be litigation heaven again as groups want to jockey for a competitive position. So it's just going to be, I think, much more confusing, and, again, it then will mean that people will have to come to the bureaucracy for every little favor, every little extension of the rule. And the fact of the matter is--let's go back to the basics--this is not going to be protective of public health, and in the case of ozone in fact hurt it, and EPA's own cost- benefit analysis in the ozone rule shows the costs far exceeding the benefit.

MARGARET WARNER: But now, as I understand it, EPA--what they're operating now, they're not allowed to take costs even into account, is that right?

WENDY GRAMM: Well, that's the way they interpret the rule, but in fact, they have stated themselves that on these proposals that they've made a policy decision because their science advisors could not find a threshold or they could not say--the science advisors couldn't say that there is a level that is significantly more protective of public health. So themselves they've said it's a policy decision.

PAUL BILLINGS: The law says set the standards based on the health science. That's what the administrator has done. She looked at the scientists and said we need to update these standards to protect public health. It's based on the science. Cost considerations come in the implementation phase, and that's what President Clinton said today. The appropriate point for cost is on that phase. What EPA is also saying is we're going to move ahead and continue to implement the old standards of air; we're going to continue to make progress and we're going to show flexibility to allow areas to meet these standards in the best way possible, with the least economic disruption and the most protection of public health. It's a common sense decision. It's a fair decision, and it's the right decision for public health.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, Paul Billings and Wendy Gramm, thank you both very much. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law designed to keep government from interfering with religious expression. Late today, the Senate passed the spending part of the balanced budget agreement. A short time later the House passed a similar version. A joint committee will try to iron out the differences once both Houses pass the tax cut part of the plan. And an unmanned cargo ship collided with the space station Mir, reducing air pressure and power for the American and two Russian astronauts aboard. IN MEMORIAM

JIM LEHRER: Before we go tonight, a brief remembrance of Jacques Cousteau. The explorer and explainer of nature died today at age 87. Here are excerpts from his widely popular television series "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau."

JACQUES COUSTEAU: ["A Sound of Dolphins"] Filming free dolphins is a challenge. There are too swift for divers to approach them. They never stay behind or alongside a ship, but they are attracted to the bow as to a magnet. To Calypso we have attached an extension with an underwater camera, aimed backward, toward the nose of the ship. We hope the extension camera will reveal dolphins swimming head on, never before achieved on film. [music in background] Meanwhile, frolicking hitchhikers come from all directions, but the main herd continues to outrun the ship, its underwater camera boom, and all other protruding contraptions. At last--a spouting humpback. It is a solitary male. Males are forerunners of the migration. On the bow of the speeding boat Philippe must seize the exact moment to contact a whale. [music in background] Using it long range for a sharp turn, the whale banks away from Philippe, who is somewhere under the blanket of foam. [music in background] Our artful dodger makes a U-turn beneath us and leaves Philippe stranded like a speck of bobbing flotsam. From the air, I observe how futile are the efforts of our divers to stay with the whale. But I have a grandstand seat. [music in background]

JIM LEHRER: In a recent interview Cousteau said, "The reason why I love the sea I cannot explain. It's physical. When you dive, you begin to feel like you're an angel." We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.