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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
U.N. Appoints Mission to Discover What Happened in Jenin; America Celebrates Earth Day
Aired April 22, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Nice to see you again. And good evening again, everyone.
A lot went on today, news of the day as we say, and we'll get to all of it in the program. But tonight, the harder the program, as writer Marshall Arbitman points out, has nothing to do with any of the news of the day and a lot to do with an event that happened 100 years ago during a presidential camping trip into the Mississippi wilderness.
Theodore Roosevelt had come to enjoy the outdoors and he hoped to shoot a bear, but day after day no bear, until hunting guides managed to corner an especially old, injured, and tired bear and tether it to a tree for the president to shoot. He didn't. An editorial cartoonist drew a cartoon. It got big play in the papers at the time, and two legacies were born.
One was the teddy bear. The second was a notion that would take hold and grow in the Roosevelt Administration, and for years to come, that the wilderness is more than just a hunting ground or a mining pit or an oil well, that the environment is our shared heritage, our legacy, and as such a balance must be struck between what we need to take from it and what we must preserve. We've been grappling with that issue ever since.
Thirty-two years ago, people celebrated the first Earth Day and the passage of the Clean Air Act. Thirty-two years later, we mark Earth Day again, and although the air and the water are cleaner, the same questions remain.
Should we drill for oil in wilderness area? What price should we pay to reduce the greenhouse effect? Ought industry face more regulation or less, and does industry have too much influence in crafting laws? Are environmentalists more concerned with saving a rare bug than saving a way of life? It turned out to be timeless questions, which is fair enough, and so are the consequences and they're on the table tonight.
But first the whip and this extraordinary meeting of U.S. cardinals getting underway at the Vatican on the matter of sex abuse. CNN's Connie Chung is in Rome tonight. Connie a headline please.
CONNIE CHUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, in about five hours, the American cardinals will begin their meeting with the Pope. But upon their arrival, talk focused on an "L.A. Times" report saying several senior American cardinals will call for Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law to step down -- Aaron.
BROWN: Connie, back to you in a moment. Jerusalem next. The pullback, the standoff and the destruction of Ramallah, CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been working on all of that today. Christiane a headline.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as the pullback goes on, Palestinians are charging that the Israeli offensive went far beyond the hunt for terrorists and was aimed at weakening, if not destroying, their own infrastructure. In the meantime, the U.N. has appointed a fact-finding mission to investigate what happened at Jenin, and the Israelis are confident that they will be exonerated.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you. In northern Virginia next, a courtroom there, Zacarias Moussaoui had a lot to say. CNN's Kelli Arena was there, so Kelli a headline from you please.
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He prayed for the destruction of the United States in open court. Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in connection with the September 11th attacks, sought today to fire his lawyers and represent himself. Aaron.
BROWN: Kelli, thank you, back with all of you shortly, a lot more to get to as well tonight. Robert Blake's first courtroom appearance, capital charges he now faces in the murder of his wife, and we'll cover that.
As we mentioned a moment ago, we're devoting a major portion of the program tonight to the environment on this Earth Day. We got a great piece on the nation's wetlands, as seen from water level. You'll also hear from a leading environmentalist and President Bush's Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton. All of that is coming up.
We begin in Rome, where a dozen U.S. cardinals, all of them except one who was too sick to travel, are settling for what one of them called a very significant meeting. Well yes, that would be true, wouldn't it? For a generation, at least, the church hoped to avoid any public discussion of this issue.
It sealed settlements and shuttled priests around, scolded parishioners who talked about such things, and now it's paying a price, a scandal, which even its most ardent defenders acknowledge has done damage and may do more if something doesn't radically change. So we begin tonight in Rome and CNN's Connie Chung. Connie, good evening again.
CHUNG: Good evening, Aaron. "The Los Angeles Times" report on Monday caused quite a stir here. Several key cardinals reportedly plan to urge the Vatican to ask for Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation. The leader of the Boston Archdiocese has been at the center of the scandal because of his handling of the cases of priests accused of sexual abuse, transferring them to other parishes, rather than removing them. The "L.A. Times" report could not be independently confirmed, and two cardinals I spoke with seem to affirm Law's determination to stay, fix the problem and not step down.
CARDINAL MAIDA, DETROIT: I don't think he should step down. I think he should be held accountable and I think he has given an account of what has happened. He's apologized. He's admitted his mistakes.
CARDINAL MCCARRICK, WASHINGTON: I can't judge my brother on this issue. I think he -- I believe when he says that he is anxious to fix it, he feels he's in charge. He knows how to do it. I don't know whether I would be able to be strong enough to do that, but he is.
CHUNG (voice over): You think he should stay on?
MCCARRICK: Oh, yes, because it's tough. You know, it's tough, but he wants to stay on to do what he wants to do and to fix it all.
CHUNG (on camera): The Pope made clear over the weekend that celibacy would not come up for discussion at the meeting -- Aaron.
BROWN: Connie, do we know much, I think you said earlier it starts in about five hours, give or take, do we know much about the form the meeting's going to take? Who besides the American cardinals will be in the room? Who speaks first? What the agenda is?
CHUNG: Yes, there will be about 20 individuals, both senior cardinals and the American cardinals there at the meeting. The president, the head of the U.S. Conference of American Bishops will be speaking first and then each cardinal will be able to speak, and then Pope John Paul will speak, and that will be until about 7:30 tomorrow night.
BROWN: Well, it will be, and this will be the understatement, a memorable day in Rome. Connie, I will be there to cover it. Thank you and we'll see you tomorrow. Connie Chung in Rome tonight.
Middle East is our next stop. The sound of machinegun fire and stun grenades could be heard again in Bethlehem near the Church of the Nativity. Five Palestinians fled the church today, they were captured by Israeli forces. More that 200 people remain inside the church. Food and water is said to be running out now.
And today, Yasser Arafat agreed to negotiations to end the standoff in Bethlehem. He's at the center of another major standoff at his compound in Ramallah, and there is no progress on that front. But not far from him, the pullback, it's really not a pullout, has ended, and a survey of the considerable destruction has begin. Again, here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (voice over): As Israel continues its withdrawal and Palestinian utility workers all over the West Bank try to repair disrupted electricity and water supplies, experts in humanitarian law are asking whether Israel has a case to answer for denying basic services or breaching the laws of war by denying ambulances and medical care to the wounded and non combatants, even after towns surrendered.
Elsewhere in Israel's search for militants, accusations fly that some army operations amounted to pure vandalism.
AMANPOUR (on camera): Palestinians believe that Israel's offensive went far beyond military objectives. Officials say one important goal was simply to destroy the framework and institutions of an emerging Palestinian state.
A group of Palestinian NGOs has compiled a preliminary damage assessment. Here they say the Ministry of Civil Affairs, of Education, Finance, Agriculture, Economy and Trade, the Minister of Industry, of Public Works, of Transport and Social Affairs, all of those were damaged and that's just here in Ramallah alone.
AMANPOUR (voice over): The Ministry of Education oversees 650,000 primary and secondary school children. In this office, the heavy safe containing confidential student transcripts, has been blasted open, records and hard discs removed, computers destroyed.
Officials here say checks from donor organizations and even $10,000 in cash was stolen. They say tanks and 150 soldiers smashed through the main gates on April 3rd.
NAIM ABU HOMMOS, DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: We told them, if you want to check the ministry, we have the keys and we can open the door for you, but what they did, they enter, they explode rooms.
AMANPOUR: It's a similar story at other ministries and in other towns, like Nablus and Bethlehem, a systematic campaign of ransacking and removing vital records, files, and as much data as possible.
Israeli authorities say they seized documents because they want to see what's going on in Palestinian Authority institutions. But here in Ramallah, the private Palestine International Bank was similarly wrecked. The army used the building to interrogate Palestinian detainees.
In the process, the main automated teller machine was destroyed in an apparent attempt to get the cash inside. It failed and so did this effort to bust a safe with a drill and hammer. And downstairs, at the bank's main vault, General Manager Osama Khader says this vault contained millions of Israeli shekels, and strongboxes with customer's tools and valuables.
Here in this bank, records, computers, hard discs, and data were removed, even customer's checks.
USAMA KHADER, GENERAL MANAGER, PALESTINE INTERNATIONAL BANK: This is a totally private financial institution. It has nothing to do with the terror. It has nothing to do with those people. AMANPOUR: Israel says any soldiers found violating the rules will be punished, but the pattern is widespread. In the eight years since the Oslo Accords, the United States, Europe, and the World Bank provided $5 billion in aid to the Palestinians. The bank estimates most of that massive investment has now been destroyed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Now the World Bank says that it will give $340 million in emergency aid to the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis are saying the World Bank should insure that it goes to needy Palestinians and not to an infrastructure, which they believe does incite terrorism.
For instance, when we ask about ministries and the like, they say they're unlikely to find terrorists there but these ministries are involved in incitement and others even in perhaps financing. So that, they say, is one of the reasons why they've been going through the ministries -- Aaron.
BROWN: Christiane, I want to be clear on this, I guess. The Israelis don't deny, is this correct? They do not deny that they went into these places, the Ministry of Education, for example, and tore up the place pretty good?
AMANPOUR: That's correct.
BROWN: And ---
AMANPOUR: They don't deny it.
BROWN: And they say, well that's just -- we were looking for important stuff and that's just what happens, the whole building gets destroyed?
AMANPOUR: Basically, yes, and when you press them, they talk about the whole sort of infrastructure. You know, they've used this word, the infrastructure of terrorism, and it turns out that that is being used as a very big catch all phrase, and a big catch all method for what they've been doing.
And basically, what we've seen, certainly in these ministries and there are others that we didn't go to but we'd heard about, there has been a great deal of damage done in the process of what they say has been trying to find any kind of reference to terrorism of incitement or the kind of things that they say that they're after.
The Palestinians for their part believe strongly that it is about trying to weaken and destroy. Certainly they believe that the Prime Minister is trying to weaken and destroy any chance of them having these independent institutions, which they've been building with U.S., European, and international aid for the last eight years.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you. Christiane Amanpour in the Middle East tonight.
One more note, quickly, from overseas. Thousands of people turned out across France today to protest what millions of their countrymen did at the voting booth yesterday.
Their ballots landed Jean-Marie Le Pen, who many consider a racist in France, into a runoff election for the presidency of the country. The polls, as we talk to you today, don't give him much of a chance of winning when he and his anti-immigrant message go up against French President Chirac in the second round.
Later on NEWSNIGHT, an extended look at questions over what's the right way to deal with the environment. Up next, we'll have more on what a captured member of al Qaeda is saying his group was planning. This is NEWSNIGHT on Monday on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We ended last week with an FBI warning of possible terrorist attacks on U.S. banks. It was based in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah, who was al Qaeda's chief of operations and is now an American prisoner.
We begin this week with another threat, apparently gleaned from Zubaydah as well. CNN's Jamie McIntyre is working the story. He joins us tonight from the Pentagon. Jamie, good to see you.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Aaron. U.S. officials won't say where Zubaydah is, but they are saying privately that he is talking. The only problem is they can't decide whether they can believe what he's saying.
The latest claim from the most senior member of al Qaeda being held by the U.S. is that al Qaeda was working to develop a radiological dispersal device, a so-called dirty bomb, and according to one official, Zubaydah told the U.S. that, "al Qaeda knew how to make it."
The problem is what to make of what he's saying. It's no surprise, of course, that al Qaeda was working to develop these kinds of weapons. Documents discovered in Afghanistan show just that, the desire to have chemical, biological and a nuclear device, including a so-called dirty bomb.
Zubaydah was also the impetus for the FBI warning on Friday, that al Qaeda was considering or discussing attacks against banks and financial institutions in the United States. Again, the credibility of that is suspect, but the FBI issued that warning on Friday out of what it called an abundance of caution. While the U.S. is not saying where Zubaydah is being held, officials do tell us this, that he is not among those held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you and obviously more reporting needs to be done on the dirty bomb story, and I expect it's going on now. Thank you.
It's a safe bet that his lawyers are advising against it, but today in a court hearing, Zacarias Moussaoui said he had no use for them and that wasn't all he said. He spoke out today in English, against his lawyers, against the court, and against the United States of America. CNN's Kelli Arena files.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA (voice over): A defiant Zacarias Moussaoui said he does not trust his court-appointed lawyers, claiming they are agents of the same government that wants to put him to death.
He asked a Federal judge to let him defend himself, or find a Muslim lawyer of his choosing. Immediately after entering the courtroom, Moussaoui surprised his lawyers requesting permission to speak. Lecturing the court in heavily accented English for nearly an hour, flanked by two Federal marshals, Moussaoui quoted the Quran and prayed to Allah for, among other things, the "destruction of the United States of America and for the destruction of the Jewish people and state."
Moussaoui, who investigators believe intended to be the 20th hijacker on September 11th, contends he never told his lawyers anything of substance. Moussaoui pledged, "America, I am ready to fight, even with both hands tied behind my back." One outside defense attorney said Moussaoui did not help his case.
WILLIAM MOFFITT, ATTORNEY: It's going to be treated as an admission that leads to the extend of his feelings about the country, OK, and it was probably, you know, unwise and reckless under the circumstances to make those kinds of statements in an American courtroom.
ARENA: Moussaoui lawyer, Frank Dunham, said the defense team "tried as hard as we could" to make the relationship work. Moussaoui, whose trial is scheduled for late September, also told the court that he does not want a jury to decide his case, but rather the judge.
MARK HULKOWER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: There's no danger to the prosecution from having a trial by judge. The reason Moussaoui would want it is because he's well aware how the public views him, and that there's probably an unparalleled level of hostility towards Mr. Moussaoui.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA (on camera): The judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Moussaoui before deciding just how to proceed. And what's more, she says she will not allow Moussaoui to represent himself, without stand- by counsel given the complexity of the case. Aaron.
BROWN: Kelli, thank you. It sounds like a day in court. Kelli Arena from Washington tonight.
In another courtroom across the country, Robert Blake, the actor, hardly spoke at all. But then in this scene, his real life drama, he was more a spectator. The prosecution had the stage today. All the good lines came from them as they laid out the charges the actor faces. He killed his wife and he did it in such a way that the death penalty for the 68-year-old actor is a possibility. Here's CNN's Frank Buckley. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Prosecutors say it was Robert Blake himself who shot and killed his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, with a vintage military handgun. In court, Blake sat next to his handyman bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, speaking only to deny the charges.
JUDGE: Mr. Braun, how does your client plead?
ROBERT BLAKE: Not guilty, your Honor.
JUDGE: All right, Mr. Blake enters a plea of not guilty on his own behalf. And Ms. Lotnick (ph), how does your client, Mr. Caldwell, plead?
EARLE CALDWELL: Not guilty, your Honor.
JUDGE: All right. Not guilty.
BUCKLEY: But in their detailed felony complaint, prosecutors said Blake tried to solicit two separate people to kill Bakley, even suggesting possible murder locations, one of them behind this restaurant, where Bakley was in fact killed.
And Caldwell, according to prosecutors, kept a list of murder items at Blake's request, two shovels and a crow bar among them. The list also included Draino, pool acid and lye.
Blake's attorney says the actor's defense is, he didn't do it, and prosecutors will have a difficult time proving anything else.
HARLAND BRAUN, ATTORNEY FOR ROBERT BLAKE: Because I think they were doing a Hail Mary with part of this, hoping that Earle Caldwell would corroborate their theory and it hasn't come true.
BUCKLEY (on camera): Blake and Caldwell remain in custody for now. The next court date in their case set for May 1st, almost exactly one year to the day after the murder of Bonnie Lee Bakley. Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Another big story out of LA got a bit lost in the Blake coverage. The police chief, Bernard Parks, announced today he'll resign, which considering his options may be considered the lesser of two evils.
The Los Angeles police commission had already decided not to offer the city's second African-American police chief a second term, and the LA City Council didn't seem much inclined to overturn that.
Later on NEWSNIGHT, how the sex abuse scandal is affecting the job of just one priest. Up next, how to clean up the environmental messes, and prevent new ones. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's Earth Day and President Bush went for a walk in the woods, near the village of Seranac (ph) Lake up in the Adirondack Mountains of Northern New York. He shook off the snow and also shook off criticism leveled at him earlier in the day by former vice president Al Gore, who said in Nashville that the administration's environmental policies serve "special interests instead of public interest."
Asked about that, the President said, "hadn't paid attention to him." The President had a bit more to say than that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For three decades, we've acted with clear purpose, to prevent needless and at times reckless disregard of the air and the water and the soil and the wildlife. This commitment has yielded tremendous progress. Our lakes and rivers are much cleaner than they were on the first Earth Day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And that is true and no one should argue otherwise. The question on the table on this Earth Day is will the air and water continue to get cleaner? That is in some respects a scientific question at its core but it is also a political question as well, oil and water in some respects.
For all the progress of the last three decades, there are still places in this country, more than a few, in which it is literally unsafe to set foot, not because they're in dicey neighborhoods, but because the soil itself in these places is a dreadful muck of so many byproducts of the modern age which is really too bad. But there you are, progress does create byproducts.
These places just have to be cleaned up is all, and isn't the federal government working on that, you ask? After all, isn't that what the Super Fund is for? A good question that. What about the Super Fund?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice over): In the woods of central New Jersey, politics and the environment can sometimes come together in a single spot.
BOB SPIEGEL, ENVIRONMENTALIST: See that purple material right there? Maybe George Bush would drink a glass of this and he'd think about reauthorizing the Super Fund.
BROWN: A local environmentalist, Bob Spiegel, has found not one but two jars of a purplish powder in the heart of an EPA Super Fund site.
SPIEGEL: It's a real shame, you know, because sites like this should be cleaned up. BROWN: This particular site, once home to a factory that used chemicals and acid to extract precious metals from things like computer circuit boards, is one of 111 Super Fund sites in the State of New Jersey alone, in an area so polluted that some parts of the soil are purple. It's not clear whether that powder had anything to do with it, and other parts are green. Our crew had to wear protective footgear just to safely walk in.
U.S. SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D) NEW YORK: You know, right now as we look at the future of the Super Fund Program, I think we have to conclude that we're going to be calling it the not-so Super Fund. Then we're going to be calling it the nonexistent fund.
BROWN: Sites like this in New Jersey are at the heart of a pending collision between Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate, and the Bush Administration. It is a battle over who will pay, the polluters responsible or taxpayers in general.
The Bush administration has refused to introduce legislation that would restore a tax on industries, industries that did pay for Super Fund cleanups for years.
GREGORY WETSTONE, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: Without that tax, what's happening is the fund is running out of money. The cleanups are slowing down in areas that are broadly recognized as presenting health hazards that we need to be moving on quickly are not being cleaned up.
BROWN: Across the country, there are more than 1,000 Super Fund sites. New Jersey has the most, but there are scores in both California and in Pennsylvania, and throughout the old Rust Belt.
The Clinton Administration tried to restore that industry tax for six years running, but Republicans in Congress refused to approve it. As a result, the cleanup fund that in 1995 totaled around $3.5 billion will next year dwindle to pocket change, about $23 million.
GAIL HORVATH, EDISON, NEW JERSEY: We were all woken up early one morning with all these helicopters. We didn't know what was going on. We all came out in our pajamas.
BROWN: Another New Jersey site sits in the back of Gail Horvath's house, home to a factory that once produced, among other things, Agent Orange.
HORVATH: We were pretty scared. We thought it was another Love Canal, and you know, were we supposed to leave our homes? You know, we all have children. You know, we were - I have to say scared. We were all scared.
BROWN: Today, 11 years later, the factory called Chemical Insecticide Corporation is gone. To get into the site now, EPA has to open the locked gates. A thick rubberized sheet covers the five and a half acres. But the cleanup of the CIC site promised to finally begin this year is on hold again. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all ready to go. There's nothing left to do. The studies are finished. The only thing left to do is start the work. And now they're coming and telling that there is no money now. There is no money to begin work here.
BROWN: The government says there's a good reason. Other sites, far worse, are in line for funding, too. And money is tight. And besides, the final decisions haven't been made yet.
MARIANNE HORINKO, EPA: It certainly is a site that the region has flagged concern, that they would like to start this year, but it's not clear whether they will have funding.
BROWN: Back on the street adjacent to the site, an answer like that isn't good enough. Not for the people who live there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I sit back and I think, Gog, my kids were kind of young when they were tested for arsenic. They had to test their hair. I mean, my kids are adults already. You know. It's a long time. It's a very long time. I mean, I don't think anybody want to be living with something like that right in their backyard.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The Superfund story on this Earth Day. Later in the program, we'll talk with the Secretary of Interior, Gale Norton.
We're joined now in Washington by Tim Wirth, who is currently president of the United Nations Foundation. Among other things, he's been an Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in the Clinton administration and of course, a Democratic member of the U.S. senate from the state of Colorado. It's nice to see you, senator.
SEN. TIM WIRTH (D-CO), PRESIDENT, UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION: Aaron, happy Earth Day. Nice to be here. Thank you.
BROWN: Same to you. If you promise only to take 20 seconds, I'm going to lob a hanging curve your way. Tell me what it is, as you look at it the administration is doing wrong philosophically here?
WIRTH: I think we started the first Earth Day, it was think globally, act locally. And I suspect now, unhappily, we're not doing either one. If you think about the local activities, running all the way from asthma and indoor air pollution, the issues of the Superfund you just looked at, the American people are really being challenged by that. And I don't understand at all the politics of the administration to kind of deny that local input.
At the same time, we've got an administration that is really become something of a rogue internationally. I use that word advisedly like kind of the rogue elephant. If you think about the treaties that are going to be necessary, as we work with allies around the world on the war on terrorism. You know, we're being viewed with enormous suspicion, and now increasing hostility by our European allies, by the Japanese, by others on issues of climate change, biological diversity and a whole lot of others. So it's this, you know, think globally, act locally that's what we should be doing on Earth Day. And I think that the record -- the jury's really out and the record's not very good at all for this administration.
BROWN: Almost 20 seconds, but not quite. Let's talk about the international component of what you just said. The administration walked away from the Kyoto Treaty, arguing that it placed an unfair burden on Americans and the American economy. And that is not totally untrue, is it?
WIRTH: I think that the -- clearly, the issues of climate change have a deep economic component, as well a basic survivability component. We have to balance the two. We can't walk away. The United States has to be the leader around the world. The world looks to us for leadship. And we can't deny that.
If the administration wanted to fix the Climate Change Treaty, they should have sat down and had many opportunities to do so. There's another one coming up this August in Johannesburg at the 10th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit to be held this August. And I hope President Bush goes. That's an opportunity for the administration to again assert the leadership that the world expects and wants of the United States.
BROWN: Broadly speaking, one of the things the administration argues is look, we are trying to preserve a way of life. Americans like their way of life. They like cheap gas. And compared to most of the world, we have very cheap gas here. And that while philosophically, Americans might talk about sacrifice, in point of fact, they don't really believe it. Do you believe your country men and women are willing to make significant sacrifices?
WIRTH: Every poll shows how important Americans think the environment is to them. You know, particularly critical constituencies of independence and women and suburbanites, you know, who are deeply concerned about this, and are willing to commit themselves and have their government commit itself to the future of the environment.
Now the best example probably is our overall energy. You mentioned cheap gasoline and so on. You know, we're sort of whistling past the graveyard in the way in which we're dealing with energy policy. The United States, even if we passed, which the Congress will not do, I don't think, everything the president wants, the United States in 10 years will be even more dependent on imported oil, than they are today.
We can't produce our way out of this. We've got to focus on alternative energy programs, on conservation measures, and on the whole package of incentives, and the whole package of actions that the American people have said over and over and over again that they will support.
But again, what's needed is the kind of leadership, let's say 100 years ago, you mentioned Teddy Roosevelt. You know, that was great leadership. That was also a Republican legacy. And I think this President Bush still has the opportunity to really inject himself back into this very important area.
BROWN: We've got 20 seconds left. It's terrible small amount of time. Do you think this is a, do you think they don't care about the environment or just philosophically, they go about it differently?
WIRTH: Well, I don't understand the ideology of the Republican party and how they put this together. But clearly, it was very much anti-Clinton, anti-Gore in the approach that they took. I thought after they came into office that we'd see a much softer and a much more constructive view, looking particularly a lot of the economics of this.
There's just a tremendous amount of good economic data on what can be done. And that's a very Republican approach. And maybe we can, you know, still find opportunities to work with them and move the agenda ahead.
BROWN: Senator, it's nice to talk to you. Thanks for your time and...
WIRTH: Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: ...following all those cues giving, all those time cues. Thank you, sir.
Gale Norton in a little bit to talk about the administration's role. Up next, a look at how to preserve and protect endangered wetlands. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We've learned a thing or two since the first Earth Day 32 years ago. We've learned that the planet, which has endured every kind of natural buffeting for hundreds of millions of years, is not nearly so rock solid as all that. Wind and torrents and solar flares shrugs off mostly. It fares less well with humands.
For all its strength, it is sometimes in places very fragile. It relies on its arch enemy, modern life to keep it alive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): When you've got a job like Paul Ketty's, there are lots of days like this. He is a professor of wetlands ecology at Southeastern Louisiana State University, which means he spends his time watching snakes, and alligators, and even furry water borne rodents call nutria.
And then there are the birds, lots and lots of birds.
PAUL KEDDY, SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA STATE UNIV.: The wetlands are producing fish. And these are all different kinds of fish eating birds. And we have turns, gulls, kormrants (ph), pelicans. And they are all here because of the wetlands. BROWN: These once endangered brown pelicans, this osprey feeding her young, they are all visible evidence, he says, that Louisiana's wetlands are healthy. At least for now.
KEDDY: There's lots of good soil. So these plants here that are growing, coming out of the water, have a productivity about equivalent to a corn field.
BROWN: But the pressure to build on or near the wetlands is intense. Take this, for instance. And enormous new two family home. On the edge of Lake Honchutrain (ph) and by definition on the wetlands.
RON VENTOLA, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: As you know, Louisiana is a especially the lower half, our district, has a very high percentage of wetlands. So it's very difficult in most cases to develop a substantial sized project that doesn't affect wetlands in some way.
BROWN: More than a decade ago, the first Bush administration laid out a wetlands policy called "no net loss," which meant if developers wanted federal approval to build on wetlands, they had to donate similar wetland areas to the public, areas that would not be developed.
KEDDY: Ideally, wetlands would be replaced near where they are being destroye. So the functions of fish production and so on would continue in that location.
BROWN: Those rules were quietly changed last fall. The Army Corps of Engineers which by law has jurisdiction over wetlands said developers could comply with regulations by donating land to the government that might be miles and miles away, and not necessarily to defined as wetlands. Environmentalists were quick to note that these changes were announced in the days just after September 11, when the world's attention was elsewhere.
KEDDY: An example would be if you have insurance on your Jaguar, and something happens to it, you want your car replaced with a Jaguar, not someone saying oh well, a Ford Escort is just fine as a -- well, we feel the same way about wetlands.
BROWN: The new rules were announced so quickly that another government agency and important one, the EPA, quickly objected. The latest regulations it said in these lengthy memos violated the original terms of no net loss. But the Corps of Engineers disagrees. The new rules the core says change absolutely nothing.
VENTOLA: When we reviewed it, we didn't see any problems with it. In fact, we felt that it validated what we've been doing over the last several years.
BROWN: In the bayous of southern Louisiana, the wetlands still seem vibrant, but government officials say they are getting more and more requests to develop these areas each and everyday. KEDDY: The concern arises that this vision, if you like, is -- can be undermined simply by minor changes in regulatory documents, minor changes that you and I might not even catch on to when we first read it.
But these things, these minor changes and terms can mean a lot when you're actually deciding whether or not certain projects can go ahead, and how much replacement wetland is going to have to be created.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And that's the wetlands controversy.
Up next, we'll talk to the nation's keeper of the public lands, the Interior Secretary, Gale Norton. This is NEWSNIGHT on Monday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Never has a guest been introduced so many times, but not seen. We're very pleased that the Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton is with us. She joins us from Boynton Beach, Florida tonight on a busy day. It's nice to see you. Thank you.
GALE NORTON, INTERIOR SECRETARY: Thank you.
BROWN: I think we can debate at some other point here whether the goals of the administration are in fact any different from its critics. I don't think you disagree that philosophically, the administration believes more on voltuntary compliance, cooperation as opposed to enforcement, litigation. And I think critics say that's a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house.
NORTON: We see the approach of voluntary action as being something that supplements regulation. We have regulation that is like a speed limit. You know, we all comply with the speed limits, but if what you want is for somebody to really improve their driving, you have to have some incentive for improvement.
And so, we want to have voluntary efforts that will encourage conservation activities that would not occur otherwise.
BROWN: Let's talk about some specific things. Criticism one, and you just heard it from Senator Wirth, the administration is much too consumption oriented, that you're perfectly willing to drill Anwar, the Gulf of Mexico or not be in favor of tougher auto standards, gas standards, but you're not willing to ask people to sacrifice.
NORTON: Well, as a matter of fact, the president's energy plan had over half of its recommendations dealing with either renewable or alternative fuels or conservation measures or environmental protections. At the Department of the Interior, we're working on ways to enhance the production of renewable energy like solar, wind, geothermal, biomass from our public lands. So we're trying to work to find alternative approaches. BROWN: Wow, and in the meantime, you got hammered in the Senate pretty bad on Anwar. Is it time to move on from Anwar into something else?
NORTON: That is still going to be in the conference committee bill because it was in the House bill. It is something that we will continue to work on. Overall, we're working on an energy approach that deals with a comprehensive approach on both sides.
BROWN: I saw somebody saying today that they saw the Rockies as the Persian Gulf of natural gas. How would your neighbors in Colorado feel about drilling in the Rockies for natural gas?
NORTON: Well, it's something that has been going on for quite a while. Obviously, whenever you're talking about any use of the public lands, we need to find ways to protect the environment. And so, we have to go through planning processes that make sure the areas where production might take place are ones that are appropriate, and that we are taking care of the wildlife and other values.
But our primary goal is to take care of our public lands. President Bush is very strongly supportive of that, and has put in more money this year in his budget for the national park service and the fish and wildlife service than have ever been proposed before.
BROWN: Respectfully, no one in your position, perhaps in any position would say you know what? The president actually doesn't care about the public lands. Just use them and abuse them. Of course you believe that the public lands need to be used appropriately. But the difference is, I think, in how they're being used. How much, you know, what is set aside completely, where energy is taken from and in that regard, the perception whether you say it's fair or not, the perception is you are much more open to using the public lands for energy consumption, or in some cases recreation and the like, than previous administrations. Fair?
NORTON: We want to see a balanced use of the public lands. There are lands set aside for wilderness, for example, or for our park system that are areas that we really want to set aside and preserve. And those areas will stay that way.
There are other areas that we have designated for multiple use. And their legal status is one that encourages a use of various types. And so, we're trying to look at those areas that are designated for multiple use to determine in what way they ought to be protected and how they can also be part of efforts that will take care of our economy and jobs.
BROWN: Secretary Norton, again, we appreciate very much your joining us tonight to talk about this difficult issue. Thank you.
NORTON: Thank you.
BROWN: Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.
Up next on NEWSNIGHT, we take a look at one priest's story. We're right back.
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BROWN: A month or so ago when we devoted most of the program to the priest sex scandal, a viewer wrote more in despair than anger. "Why can't you do story on the thousands of good priests, the men who not only don't abuse children, but have devoted their lives to doing good?"
The news, of course, is rarely about the expected. It's not about the actor, who isn't arrested, the wetlands that aren't left alone, the Muslim who doesn't hijack an airplane, every cat that doesn't get caught in a tree. The news is always about something else. Well, not always. This time it is about the expected, the common, the right. About the priest, and there were thousands to choose from, who just does his job for his church's parish and his God.
It is reported for us tonight by CNN's Bruce Morton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit.
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Father James Gould, his new parish, some 700 families in the Washington suburbs doesn't have a church yet. He says mass in the chapel of a parochial school. And like all priests in these troubled times, he worries.
JAMES GOULD: The heartbreak, the consideration and how devastating it must be for the clergies across the country. There are 47,000 priests in this country of ours. And the 47,000 priests, every one of them is impacted by these scandals taking place.
MORTON: He doesn't just say mass, of course. He helps out in the school. One boy named the three wise men correctly.
GOULD: How about the three wise men, can you give me that?
You can name the three wise men.
MORTON: He talks with architect Dominique Murray about the church building they hope to break ground this fall.
And this is looking towards the altar where we have all the pews.
MORTON: He talks with the men and women of his parish.
GOULD: The little one is what, three-years old, four-years old?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three is the oldest.
MORTON: His parishioners are worried, too.
GOULD: They're upset. They're upset and concerned. There is no sense of finality to this problem. No one is really certain when it's all going to go away.
MORTON: Father Gould's next stop, Inova Fairfax Hospital. He's visiting Brigitta Sanchez O'Brien and her father. She's got a stubborn infection. Father Gould has brought a gift.
GOULD: How's that? That a little cross with Jesus.
MORTON: It's what priests do, of course, but everything in these times is under a cloud.
GOULD: It is such a crushing feature that affects the morale of the clergy, that affects family life, that affects all people from the cardinal, down to the local secretaries. Everyone's affected by that.
MORTON: He shares a rectory with an Australian fellow priest and with Sam, a golden retriever. To relax, all three of them go fishing at a nearby lake. No blue gill this day, but Sam's having a good me. Father Gould likes the lake, the illusion of fish. But something nags at him. Something his church hasn't done.
GOULD: When you think there's a Catholic kid who's a college student with non-Catholic roommates, who are going to mock him or her. You think there might be a Catholic spouse with non-catholic relatives, in-law questioning who'll be questioning whether those grandchildren should be raised in that church. You think that those who are around the bus going to work on Monday mornings, and who are being teased about what the people are reading in the Sunday papers. Those people deserve an apology.
MORTON: Pedophilia, a reporter suggests, may be an illness. Cover ups are not.
GOULD: Yes, I have no explanation for the questions of the cover ups.
MORTON: He wonders and works at his job.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Springfield, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, good news, that. Not so bad to see good news. That's a report for tonight. We're all back here tomorrow. We hope you join us. Good-night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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