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Campbell Brown
Gulf Oil Disaster Getting Worse?; Interview With Andrew McCarthy
Aired May 21, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there, everybody.
BP on deadline tonight. The EPA has told the company that, by the end of the weekend, they have to switch to a chemical dispersant that is not so toxic, as the attempt to clean up the Gulf oil spill continues. And as oil washes up on the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana today, BP says that they will not make another attempt to plug the leak until Tuesday. That's a full 35 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up.
So, is a bad situation on the verge of getting much, much worse? We will talk about that tonight.
Also, there was some good news on Wall Street, as stocks ended the day on a high note. But I will talk to an author who says, not so fast; the global economic crisis is far from over.
And then, on a lighter note, actor Andrew McCarthy, star of movies like "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Less Than Zero," has a second career writing travel articles about some of the world's most exotic locations. And he is here with us tonight as well.
But we begin with our number-one story and that is oil. Take a look. We have a live shot. This is from the oil spewing from the leak. And even now we can't definitively answer the most basic question, exactly how much oil is gushing out of the well and into the Gulf.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I had a hearing on Wednesday bringing in the scientists, and each of them said that 5,000 barrels per day is an -- was an absolutely ridiculously low number and that it was at least 40,000, 50,000, perhaps upwards of 100,000 barrels per day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A federal task force is trying to determine the leak rate. But BP says it is working from the 5,000-barrel estimate for next week attempt to stop the oil. Called top kill, the company will shoot heavy drilling mud through the blowout preventer and into the well to cap it.
DOUG SUTTLES, COO, GLOBAL EXPLORATION, BP: I think the best-case scenario is actually either late Sunday or early Monday, this top kill procedure works and the flow stops. I know we all want that to occur. I know everyone is behind that. I think the worst case it is takes us until the relief well gets down, which would probably be about early August.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And, tonight, a story about the spill that will likely infuriate you as much as anything you have a already heard. We have uncovered a major example of help that could be on the way to the Gulf, but isn't.
Despite the fact that BP are ordering -- despite the EPA, rather, now ordering BP to find less toxic chemicals to help break up the oil, CNN has discovered a massive supply of dispersant that could be a greener, safer alternative, but instead of being brought in to save the day, it is collecting dust, even as the oil continues to pour into the Gulf.
Here right now, CNN's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hundreds of containers are just sitting here in the Houston sun. To some, it's just another example of the mismanagement of the oil spill. The containers are full of a chemical dispersant calls Sea Brat 4. Why is it sitting here, and not in the ocean instead? No one really knows, especially since BP's on record as saying it would use the stuff.
DOUG SUTTLES, COO, GLOBAL EXPLORATION, BP: We also have a second product now identified to use called Sea Brat 4, which we will begin introducing into the -- the process as well.
LAVANDERA (on camera): That's what BP said almost a week ago. But we found the Sea Brat 4 just sitting here in an industrial park outside of Houston, Texas. You're looking at it, almost 100,000 gallons of the less toxic dispersant. Guess who ordered it? BP did, on May 4, almost three weeks ago.
JOHN SHEFFIELD, PRESIDENT, ALABASTER CORPORATION: This is Sea Brat. It's in totes ready for delivery.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): John Sheffield is president of the company that makes Sea Brat 4.
(on camera): Do you think it's weird that stuff's just sitting here in the Houston area?
SHEFFIELD: It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. You know, I think something's intentionally trying to stop us from getting our product in the water.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): EPA and Coast Guard officials say there's nothing stopping BP from using Sea Brat 4. Sheffield says that, by now, he could be making 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of dispersant a day. But a BP spokesman will only say the company had to use what was readily available and stockpiled, and it has been asked to find alternatives to the current dispersant, Corexit, and that's what they're in the process of doing.
Getting a direct answer is even hard for Congress to get, as they grilled Lamar McKay this week about the issue.
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Who decided which dispersant to use? BP?
LAMAR MCKAY, PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN, BP AMERICA, INC.: I don't know the...
NADLER: You don't know?
MCKAY: I don't know the individual who decided which...
NADLER: I didn't ask the individual.
MCKAY: I don't...
NADLER: Was it the -- BP who decided, or was it the national -- the government who decided, or the national incident command?
(CROSSTALK)
MCKAY: I don't know. I don't know.
NADLER: You don't know. Could you find out for us, please?
MCKAY: Yes.
LAVANDERA: Easier said than done. There's still no word on who's making that call, while 100,000 gallons of potential help sits hundreds of miles away.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And Ed Lavandera is joining me right now from New Orleans.
And, Ed, since your story has been out there, what has the fallout been?
LAVANDERA: Well, it's been interesting. BP announced today, the chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, announced late this afternoon that none of the options they have reported back to the EPA, that none of the alternative dispersants would be an option, so that they want to keep using Corexit. You can listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUTTLES: Our analysis that we submitted to the EPA last night said there were not any other dispersants that we could yet identify that were available that were less toxic than this. We have very specific concerns after we looked deeper into Sea Brat 4 with that particular mix. And we have shared those with the EPA. We have given that information to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: Campbell, we have been trying all afternoon, all day to get comment from the EPA to see where things stand now. We have not heard back from them.
The only thing we have been sold is that we could expect perhaps a statement at some point later today, but so far we haven't received it.
BROWN: All right, Ed Lavandera for us, still a lot of questions out there, obviously. Ed, thank you so much.
And we should mention to you, the viewers, Ed has also been looking into just how cozy the relationship between the federal government and the oil industry has been on this particular issue. And we're going to have that CNN investigation coming up in just a moment.
But, right now, I want to bring in Carys Mitchelmore, who is a toxicologist who testified on Capitol Hill just this week about dispersants and Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University who has been helping us out this week as well, sharing his expertise.
Carys, let me start with you.
You have been investigating the toxicity of these dispersants. And I know you test Sea Brat 4 last night, in fact, and you found it is one of the few that does meet the EPA's criteria. So, what do you make of what we just heard, which was BP saying that they can't find a less toxic dispersant to use than the one that they're putting underwater right now?
CARYS MITCHELMORE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Yes.
Given EPA's recent directive last night, if you look at the dispersants that were approved for use, there is a top four that will meet those EPA toxicity criteria. But what we should also keep in mind is that the organisms in the water column are not just exposed to the dispersant, but they're exposed to the complex mixture of dispersant and the oil.
And that is what they are swimming through.
BROWN: So...
MITCHELMORE: Any dispersant is going to give you that plume of those small droplets, which impact those organisms.
BROWN: But did you -- can you figure out what BPA's thinking -- or BP's thinking might be listening to his comments about suggesting that this is not the case, what the EPA is telling us?
MITCHELMORE: Well, listed on the EPA table is just some limited toxicity information regarding that dispersant. And maybe they have done some more robust testing, but the other issue to consider is that up front of any toxicity decision, this product needs to be effective. And this is particularly pertinent to the subfloor application.
Many dispersants, they work at -- they're effective at different temperatures. And that is not something that is provided in the table. The effectiveness data is on normal temperatures.
BROWN: Right.
But do we know, I guess, the long-term effects of the stuff that they are using right now, what -- the effects it has on marine life, on people? I mean, what do we know about that?
MITCHELMORE: Very little. And that's the problem with the -- any dispersant application, the long-term effects of the application of these out into the ocean. The long-term effects on the water column, how it affects the food web, how it affects an organism's reproduction, and the long-term consequences to a variety of species is a huge uncertainty and an unknown right now.
BROWN: So, Ian, to that point -- and I know this is going to sound like a really basic question here -- but if we have such little information about these dispersants, about what they do, about the effects they have, about the effectiveness, then why is our government letting BP use this method to begin with?
IAN MACDONALD, OCEANOGRAPHER, FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY: They're trying to stop the oil from coming ashore. They're trying to break up the layers that would form the surface and it would come ashore in places like Louisiana wetlands.
And that's a concern. And that's -- that may work that way. But, as has been pointed out, this is a gigantic experiment, which has never been performed before. Millions of gallons of this material, or half-a-million gallons I guess now, have been released. And it's absolutely right that it's just like washing, using a detergent to wash bacon grease off of your frying pan.
The grease doesn't go away. It's just dissolved in the water. And, so, the toxic compounds of the oil, the benzene, the xylene, the other toxins, they're there in the water to be absorbed and to have effect on marine life.
BROWN: So, let me ask you, also -- and I don't know how much you can say about this, again, that we're -- as you said, we're in a real gray area here. But we are hearing these stories or starting to hear these stories from fishermen who are working on the cleanup, saying that they're feeling sick.
One congressman is now calling for temporary health centers to be set up along the coast. What does that say to you? MACDONALD: Well, it's certainly a matter for concern. I don't have any medical information. But I do know that I have been contacted by fishermen from the -- who are veterans of the Prince William Sound Exxon Valdez experience, and they all complained of health effects both during the response to the Exxon Valdez spill, when great amounts of dispersant were sprayed, and then in subsequent years, many of them complained about a long-lasting effect. So, that is certainly a matter for concern.
BROWN: All right, so much here that we still don't have answers to. Really appreciate your time tonight from both of you. Thanks so much for being with us.
MITCHELMORE: Thank you.
BROWN: We're going to delve into one of the bigger controversies surrounding the disaster, which is, just how much did the government look the other way and bend over backwards, frankly, to help the oil industry and to keep them happy? We have some new details from our investigation to share with you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight, CNN has new information about the relationship between the federal government's Mineral Management Service and big oil.
In recent weeks, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on this program admitted there is a culture of corruption at the MMS that needs to be fixed, especially in light of the oil spill disaster.
And CNN has been looking into that cozy relationship for years.
Listen to what Dan Simon reported. This was back in 2008.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did the apparent culture of sex, drugs, gifts and trips in that government office mean oil companies got off cheap and taxpayers cheated? A scathing report from the Interior Department's inspector general says more than a dozen government workers engaged in unethical behavior and got too close to oil industry executives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Ed Lavandera is joining us again with a special CNN investigation looking at whether the feds allowed the oil industry to effectively police itself, a practice that may have made it all too easy for a deadly accident like the Gulf oil rig explosion to happen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STUART SMITH, ENVIRONMENTAL ATTORNEY: I was flying from Miami Beach to New Orleans. We literally flew right by it. And it was just a huge flame coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. LAVANDERA (voice-over): So let's load up.
SMITH: OK, great.
LAVANDERA: Stuart Smith an environmental attorney and pilot in New Orleans, is representing fishermen who have been put out of work.
SMITH: The heavily concentrated areas like right around here.
LAVANDERA: He has won dozens of cases against oil companies, but this may be his toughest battle yet. He took us up to see the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
SMITH: This is Armageddon for southeast Louisiana.
LAVANDERA: Smith says part of the problem is with the government agency that is supposed to minimize the risk of a catastrophe like this. Critics say the Minerals Management Service, or MMS, had a far too close relationship with the very oil companies they regulate, ignored their own recommendations, and caved in to the industry over tighter safety standards.
Under MMS' watch, it is standard practice for oil companies to produce their own reports on possible environmental impacts. Smith says it is time for change.
SMITH: The government should have their own teams of contractors that work exclusively for the government. Instead of a rational approach like that, they basically say OK, you can go out and do the study. You can hire the contractors to do the study, and we will accept it and we will rubber-stamp whatever you want.
LAVANDERA: In documents CNN discovered dating as far back as 2000, MMS was aware of a looming problem. In a report, MMS warned the oil industry's experience base in deepwater well control is limited. In that same report, MMS warned that a blowout in the Gulf could be a potential show-stopper if the industry and MMS do not come together as a whole to prevent such an incident.
But time and again, the government agency did not heed its own advice. One area of MMS' oversight is safety. On an oil rig, a device called a blowout preventer, or BOP, is designed to keep the well under control through a series of valves. The BOP on the Deepwater Horizon was already damaged with a hydraulic leak and a weak battery.
The last line of defense of a BOP are the shears.
Eric Smith (ph) is associate director of Tulane's Energy Institute. We met up with him at this year's offshore technology conference.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They basically are big scissors. And you think of a plastic straw in a bottle of soda pop, and if you had a way to close the scissors over the soda pop, it would form the pipe and push it together. That's what a shear does. LAVANDERA: But they failed on the Deepwater Horizon. MMS had been warned about problems with the shears. CNN discovered a 2002 study commissioned by MMS that reported the shears were only effective 50 percent of the time. Yet MMS did not propose stronger regulation.
SMITH: These regulations in the state and federal arena look wonderful and say wonderful things, but if you're not enforcing them, then people don't pay attention.
LAVANDERA: And is that lack of enforcement in your opinion based on coziness; I know you guys; you know me?
SMITH: I think it's absolutely based on coziness. I mean, the oil industry in Louisiana has always pretty much gotten what they wanted on a statewide level, and in the federal area, too. They have so many special tax breaks, so many special exemptions from environmental laws. They are the least regulated industry from an environmental point of view in the country.
LAVANDERA: And in 2000, MMS issued a safety alert, recommending a backup shutoff switch to the BOP, calling it an essential component. The switch, which can cost more than $500,000, is designed to remotely turn on the system that can prevent blowouts.
But the industry argued against it, saying it was unreliable. A 2003 report commissioned by MMS came to the same conclusion. The report claimed that the systems tend to be very costly and there is insufficient data available on system reliability. The sensors are not required in the U.S., yet they are mandated in Brazil and Norway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In retrospect, OK, when they were drilling the production hole...
LAVANDERA: Michael Norton (ph) has worked in the oil business for more than 40 years, and has investigated oil blowouts. Approximately five hours before the explosion, a pressure test on the rig revealed a potential problem. Norton says it was a red flag.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They started getting, as they report, anomalous pressure readings. And they were circulating up gas to the surface. And, at this point, someone has to say stop, and let's close the well in, and let's figure out what is happening.
LAVANDERA: In the meantime, Ken Salazar, secretary of the interior, which oversees MMS announced he is reorganizing the agency.
KEN SALAZAR, U.S. INTERIOR SECRETARY: We have one of the most regulated industries in the world. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
LAVANDERA: MMS has repeatedly denied CNN's requests for an interview.
In an e-mail to CNN, MMS stated they must wait for the ongoing investigation to conclude. BP has also declined CNN's interview requests, in a statement, saying, "Speculation over the causes or implications of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy would be premature. These issues will be fully explored in investigations in which we will participate."
But as the investigation moves forward, MMS continues to come under fire. BP and the government still struggle to contain the leak, and the Gulf Coast's future is in question.
SMITH: If this thing keeps leaking for the next two or three months, these communities will not exist.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That was Ed Lavandera reporting.
Coming up: Is it the end of an era? Have the latest stumbles in Europe exposed weakness in the global market? Was it all just too good to be true?
And then, a little bit later, a generation of women's heart may go thump-thump at the mention of former Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy. Well, he is here tonight to talk about his surprising second act.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our top national story tonight, a distraught man texts his ex-girlfriend, threatening to harm himself. But here is the shocking part. He is a JetBlue pilot confronted by authorities right before a flight out of Boston's Logan Airport.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE NACCARA, FEDERAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: The person was so distraught that he was threatening to harm himself in Specter fashion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The veteran pilot was carrying a gun. Sources say he is a federal flight deck officer, trained and allowed to carry a firearm into the cockpit. The flight attendant sounded the alarm after receiving the pilot's message. The key words, TSA officials say, are harm himself. They say he never directly threatened the plane or its passengers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The pilot was not charged, but he was taken immediately to Massachusetts General Hospital for evaluation.
Stocks on Wall Street surged as trading ended today, capping another volatile week, this after German lawmakers approved their country's share of a nearly $1 trillion bailout deal. Now, that deal should help save the euro, as there are worries that the European debt crisis could spread around the globe and cause another recession in the U.S.
Earlier, I talked to Ian Bremmer. He's author of the new book "The End of the Free Market." He says, despite global uncertainty, the U.S. dollar and gold will continue to appreciate.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ian Bremmer, welcome to you. It's great to have you here.
IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: Very happy to be with you.
BROWN: So, you have the well-respected economist Nouriel Roubini causing a stir because he said that people should get out of the market. It's going to fall another 20 percent. We should all have cash right now. And then you also have Warren Buffett saying that the U.S. economy is showing real signs of life.
And I think for a lot of people, the average joe, myself included, we're sort of left as what on earth do we do right now? What do you do?
BREMMER: Look, I can square those two, because there are signs of life in the U.S. economy. And if we could focus on the U.S. in isolation, life wouldn't be so bad. Compared to Japan and Europe, the other parts of the developed world, the U.S. looks great, except that there is all this stuff going on.
You know, last year, while the financial crisis was happening, the one thing that Obama really had going for him is he could spend his entire time focusing on the U.S.
BROWN: Right.
BREMMER: Nothing else was really happening.
Now we have this unprecedented crisis in Europe, the world's largest economy. We have enormous problems in Japan. U.S.-China relations are getting worse. We have much greater tensions in Iran. We have much greater tensions in North Korea. And facing all of this, you have a lot of investors getting very, very defensive.
BROWN: Well, talk a little bit about what is happening in Europe right now, because I think a lot of people don't understand the extent to which it is so interconnected and it so has an impact on the U.S. economy and why it's affecting all of us.
BREMMER: Well, the good news about Europe is that they have finally gotten to the point that they recognize they have a serious problem, and they have to respond.
But it may be too late. I mean, you have spending that has occurred in many of the European countries, particularly Greece, Spain, Portugal, that is utterly unsustainable. In the case of Greece, they can't meet their obligations to lenders.
And they're going have to take measures that will reduce their GDPs by probably well over 10 percent. Now, the Germans have led, as the strongest economy in Europe, out with over a trillion dollars in a facility that will bail these guys out. But this is not like the trillion dollar the U.S. spent, which is one country.
Here, you have a coordination of many countries that have to figure out how they're going to give that money, under what conditions. And you have lots of other countries that have to decide if they're really going to implement the measure.
BROWN: It's incredible to think about getting everybody on board, compared to what -- how hard it is even to get our Congress on board to deal with our economy in one -- one -- one flash.
BREMMER: Well, imagine if you had had the TARP in the United States, and then every individual state government had to then get on board with exactly what TARP was going to look like. It wouldn't have worked.
And I think what we're seeing right now is that, in Europe, there is a belief that there is a will. There is a will right now to actually buckle down, if you're in Greece. There is. They're taking it seriously in Spain and Portugal.
BROWN: What choice do they have at this stage?
BREMMER: They don't have a choice. And there is a will on the part of the Northern European governments, particularly Germany and France, to put the money in.
But that doesn't mean they're going to be able to get it done. And, so, you have investors in the United States and banks in the U.S. with big exposures in Europe saying, we're not convinced that the most successful experiment ever of the free market system, the creation of this Eurozone, is going to work. We are in uncharted waters.
And what the Europeans are doing right now is the equivalent of the BP junk shot into this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They know they have a problem and they're throwing something big at it. But we don't know if it's going to work.
BROWN: So, what if it doesn't?
BREMMER: Well, if it doesn't, then you're going to have big defaults in European states, and you might have some banks fail.
And, in the United States, you have banks fail. We know that the Americans when pressed have the ability, maybe unpopular, to put a lot of money into these banks. We do not know in banks across all of these countries that the European central bank -- and they're going have a big leadership transition in 2011 -- we do not know if they have the capacity to actually bail these guys out.
BROWN: Scary times I think. Ian Bremmer, it's fascinating to talk to you.
BREMMER: It is. BROWN: Really appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.
BREMMER: My pleasure.
BROWN: Ever wonder what can be done with a few pennies? Well, stick around. We're going to introduce you to someone who is putting pennies to good use. An inspiring story and part of our series "The Right Stuff." That's when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Some of the hardest hit victims of this recession are teachers. And coming up, our last installment of America's Schools in Crisis." But first, Joe Johns is here with a look at some of the other stories we are following tonight. Hey there, Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Campbell. Late today, the Texas school board adopted a controversial new curriculum that could affect textbooks across the nation. It questions the separation of church and state and downplays Thomas Jefferson as one of the founding fathers. The standards refer to the U.S. government as a constitutional republic rather than a Democratic republic. Critics have blasted that new curriculum for politicizing education.
Next week, BP will attempt what it calls a top kill method to plug that massive leak in the gulf. Here is how it's supposed to work. Thick fluid twice the density of water will be pumped at a high rate into the leak. That is supposed to stop the flow of oil so the gusher can eventually be sealed with cement.
And one of America's most famous mountains is about to get some laser surgery. The National Park Service is using lasers to create a three-dimensional digital scan of Mount Rushmore. If the monument is ever damaged, the 3-D data would allow workers to make repairs and replicate the sculpture to the finest detail. And I guess there is no way to make a plaster cast of it.
BROWN: Probably not. But that's pretty cool. All right, Joe Johns for us tonight. Joe, thanks very much.
Coming up, our nation's teachers battered by a bad economy. Tens of thousands of them face layoffs in a bleak job market. And what about the kids? Our special series "America's Schools in Crisis" when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This recession has been especially rough on our teachers. Nearly 17,000 educators in Illinois alone will be looking for work at the end of this school year. School districts there have been waiting since September for the nearly bankrupt state to pay its bills. And what's worse, the negative impact of a bad economy could be felt there for generation. CNN's Soledad O'Brien continues our special series "America's Schools in Crisis."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You don't notice them at first, but tucked between the messages about the next school band concert and the location of the school's visitors' entrance is a singular note of protest. "State owes U-46 20 million. Fix school funding."
RON HUBERMAN, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS CEO: What we are on the verge of in the state of Illinois are the kinds of cuts that will leave a generation of kids behind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So how are you going to know how much --
O'BRIEN: Illinois spends less on education than all but one other state. With the recession, legislators plan further cuts.
HUBERMAN: I'm Ron Huberman. Nice to meet you as well.
O'BRIEN: So the superintendents of the state's two largest districts, Chicago's Ron Huberman and Jose Torres from this suburban district, meet to brainstorm about cuts. The two superintendents initially made cuts that wouldn't impact classroom instruction. They drained the pool, eliminated second string sports teams and stopped buying new furniture. But now the financial crisis is so bad, the classroom is no longer immune. Chicago could hand out over 3,200 pink slips to teachers. And this district will lay off teachers too.
JOSE TORRES, U-46 SUPERINTENDENT: I have proposed to the board, and they approved a reduction in force of a thousand people.
O'BRIEN (on camera): In some places, teachers are looking at 37 students to one teacher.
ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: No, that --
O'BRIEN: Can you possibly educate in that environment?
DUNCAN: That's a huge challenge.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's grand ambitions to improve schools may be challenged by this economy. Twenty-eight percent of the suburban district's teaching force has been let go. At a break in rehearsal, Streamwood High's much loved choir teacher breaks the news.
DAVID HAIN, TEACHER: As you guys know, the school district has cut a ton of teachers, like 740 teachers. And I am one of them. And that means that it's entirely possible you guys will have a new director next year.
O'BRIEN: Some of these students have been studying with David Hain since fifth grade.
SAM KWAK, STUDENT: Music was -- I actually learned what music really was. And he was really a revolutionist.
HANES: Repeat. O'BRIEN: Hain quadrupled the size of the school's choir program. But despite its success, the entire music staff has been let go.
HAIN: Music and art are an easy target because they're not tested on standardized tests.
O'BRIEN: But to these students, music means so much more. Junior Marjorie Latimore says Mr. Hain is the reason she stays in school.
MARJORIE LATIMORE, STUDENT: I got here and I just didn't want to come to school. I didn't want to wake up in the morning. I didn't -- just nothing in class, I just drudged through.
O'BRIEN: Latimore had high hopes she'd earn a music scholarship to pay for college. But now she's not sure if singing is in her future. To her, Mr. Hain is irreplaceable.
LATIMORE: People are here because he makes them feel safe and like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.
HAIN: One, two, three.
O'BRIEN: Hain understands layoffs are a necessary evil. But he worries it sends his students the wrong message.
HAIN: The thing that the students need is consistency. They need to see the same faces. They need to have the same message drilled into them from the time they're little kids all the way up to when they graduate. Economics is important. Academics is important. Academics is important and here's how you do it.
NATALIE OLSEN, PARENT: What can we do to kind of help support the learning that's going on in school?
O'BRIEN: Parents like Natalie Olsen worry the remaining teachers will be overwhelmed. That could be especially hard on her second grader.
OLSEN: I happen to have a little guy who has a hard time sitting still. And so he requires a little bit more attention. For a teacher to be able to divide her time and devote to each child what they need because they're all individuals, it's going to be really tough.
DUNCAN: Whether it's truant officers, whether it's eliminating summer school, whether we have schools around the country going to four-day weeks, again, we need more time, not less. None of these things are good for children. And we have to invest in education.
O'BRIEN: Education Secretary Arne Duncan is proposing a kind of bailout bill for education. But it may not pass in time to save Elgin's (ph) educators.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So, Soledad, explain exactly what the bailout bill would do.
O'BRIEN: Well, the teacher employment bailout bill would send $23 billion to the states to retain or rehire the teachers. It would come just in time, in fact, because some of the states have already run through that federal stimulus money. And just this week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned that nationwide up to 300,000 teachers could be out of work at the end of the school year.
BROWN: All right, Soledad O'Brien. Soledad, thanks. Appreciate it.
O'BRIEN: You bet.
BROWN: And we'll have much more when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Now it's time for our segment we call "The Right Stuff." Every Friday, we're going to introduce you to someone we think stands out, who has helped make our world just a little bit better. And tonight, we choose Greg Mortenson, who is the best-selling author of "Pennies for Peace." On Wednesday, students at a New Jersey high school gave Mortenson a generous donation for his unique mission. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREG MORTENSON, FOUNDER, PENNIES FOR PEACE: I'm Greg Mortenson. I am the founder of Pennies for Peace. And for 17 years, I've been setting up schools, especially for girls in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many stones?
CHILDREN: Two.
MORTENSON: What I'd like to see most of all, more than anything else is that every single child on this planet would have the right to go to school. And there are today 118 million children not in school, including 78 million females. We built now 143. We're running 60 more schools. The community gives the most sweat equity, free land and free resources.
Some of the girls at our schools, they walk three hours. Some of them have stones thrown at them. Some of them are targeted by the Taliban. But despite all that, they're still very determined to go to school. However, there are some people who are fiercely opposed to educating girls. It takes relationships. It takes time. It also takes a lot of listening.
Pennies for Peace is a campaign that kids all around the country get involved in. They have lemonade stands. They wash cars.
STEPHANIE SCHMIDT, WATCHUNG HILLS REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: We had one teacher willing to pierce his nose and dye his hair. Another teacher said he would dress like a girl for the day.
MORTENSON: It teaches children not only about philanthropy and about caring and sharing but also about learning from their elders.
ZOE MALKIN, WATCHUNG HILLS REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: I learn that the individual can make a difference, and that the whole concept of power of one is really true.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the amount of $25,000, you guys did an incredible job.
MORTENSON: They raised over $25,000 in pennies. We've had in the last year almost $2 million in pennies raised.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So not only are we helping people overseas and we're creating a great environment for people to learn, but we're also strengthening our communities here.
MORTENSON: The most inspiring thing is just to see that a penny and just one simple idea can change people's lives.
DANIELLE BRIEF, WATCHUNG HILLS REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: Just seeing how everyone all got together and was able to accomplish this goal, I mean, that's like a lesson that I'll take with me throughout the rest of my life.
SCHMIDT: I've learned that the world is closer connected than we think. We might not speak the same language, have the same religion, dress the same, but we all deserve the same basic human rights. And education I think is one of them.
MORTENSON: I think adults, we become very linear. We become very logical and strategic. But kids think from their heart. And I think we could listen to our kids a little more and follow our hearts. I think the world would be a much better place.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Three years ago, the Pennies for Peace program was active in 300 schools. Last year, that number grew to 4,500 schools in 20 countries.
Coming up next, a movie heartthrob from the '80s is back in a brand-new role. We're going talk to Andrew McCarthy about why he is traveling the world, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: If you spend any time on Google's home page today, you can probably guess which story people are buzzing about tonight. It is the 30th anniversary of Pac Man. And the folks at Google celebrated with a fully playable version of the classic video game right on their home page.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The classic arcade video game. It was released actually 30 years ago in Japan. It spawned hundreds of products, a cartoon, a breakfast cereal, a hit song.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Google honored the occasion with its first ever playable signature masthead. In case you heard that incredibly annoying theme music at work, it does play through the weekend if there's anyone you need to annoy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: According to Google, there is also a hidden feature that allows you to bring Ms. Pac Man into the game as well.
Andrew McCarthy, his name sounds familiar, right? You may know him from movies like "St. Elmo's Fire" or "Pretty in Pink." He's got a new gig, and it's taking him to some very exotic locations. Morocco, Ethiopia, Brazil, not for a movie, but instead as a travel writer. And we talked to him about it earlier. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Andrew McCarthy, welcome to you.
ANDREW MCCARTHY, ACTOR/TRAVEL WRITER: Thanks. Nice to be here.
BROWN: So I think a lot of people, if not most people probably think of you as this iconic actor.
MCCARTHY: Yes.
BROWN: And yet you have this secret life, or not so secret because you're writing for "The Atlantic," "National Geographic," "Men's Journal."
MCCARTHY: Yes, I do have this other --
BROWN: How did this happen?
MCCARTHY: It happened -- I've always been a big traveler and a big fan of travel writing. And I met the editor, a guy named Keith Bellows of a magazine called "National Geographic Traveler" at a party about seven or eight years ago.
BROWN: Yes.
MCCARTHY: I said you ought to let me write for your magazine. He said why. I said well, I travel a lot and I know how to tell a story. And he thought that was a good answer.
BROWN: Yes.
MCCARTHY: And so, because most travel writing you read about in magazines particularly is you don't get a good story. You just get -- I went here, I did this.
BROWN: Yes. The hotel was OK. The food was OK.
MCCARTHY: Yes. And so, I did a piece for him, and it went well. And then they gave me another one, another one. It just sort of grew and expanded out of that.
BROWN: So you actually wrote that you think traveling makes you a better person. Or I guess let me be more specific, that maybe you're more at home sometimes in certain places than you feel at home.
MCCARTHY: I do find that in my life.
BROWN: Do you?
MCCARTHY: I find myself feeling more at home in myself the farther away from home I am often.
BROWN: Really?
MCCARTHY: Yes, I think so. I think I find myself in a real nice way when I'm traveling and when I'm sort of broken out of my normal routine and dependent on the kindness of strangers, you know. I think I'm a better version of myself, for sure. I think most people are.
BROWN: But as Americans, compared to I think people everywhere else around the world, we travel a lot less, truthfully.
MCCARTHY: Well, that's my pet peeve. I think Americans have 28 percent of Americans have passports, and half of those use them. I think it's appalling. I mean, I think America could be a vastly different place if people traveled. I think we're very -- this is my soapbox.
BROWN: Yes.
MCCARTHY: But I think Americans are a very fearful country. And I think we would be a lot less fearful if we got out in the world and saw and made ourselves vulnerable to other people and their cultures.
BROWN: Right. But why do you think that is? Why do you think people aren't as inclined?
MCCARTHY: Well, we're sort of -- we're isolated here.
BROWN: And we're comfortable.
MCCARTHY: We're comfortable here. And if you want to go far away, you can go far away and still use dollars.
BROWN: Right.
MCCARTHY: And everybody is comfortable. You know, in Europe, in an hour you're in a different country, a different culture.
BROWN: Right. Right.
MCCARTHY: But I think it's -- I think it's a shame. BROWN: I got to ask you about a trip to Ethiopia because I heard you got into a little trouble with the law.
MCCARTHY: It seems I've been arrested. More later.
BROWN: What happened?
MCCARTHY: Well, I was doing a piece for a magazine, and the sort of concept of the piece was we just send you somewhere, we're not telling you where you're going. You just go. We'll give you a place. You're going to go.
BROWN: OK.
MCCARTHY: So I ended up in Ethiopia unannounced. And I was visiting these churches in Lalibela (ph). I love Ethiopia. An amazing place. And but I didn't have a ticket for some reason. A man had a gun and he arrested me. You know, it was a complete misunderstanding. But it made good copy.
BROWN: Made for good copy.
MCCARTHY: And then I got in all sorts of trouble with the consulate from Ethiopia. He's going why are you staying? But anyway, I loved Ethiopia, and they were very kind to me.
BROWN: Would you ever give up acting to do this full-time?
MCCARTHY: No. I love acting. I mean, they sort of feed each other.
BROWN: Yes.
MCCARTHY: You know, sort of in acting you have to be really observant, if you're good. Hopefully you're observant. And so that feeds into the writing --
BROWN: Right.
MCCARTHY: And so it feeds into the storytelling and all that. You know, I think they feed each other in a certain way.
BROWN: Well, you have a lot of fans in both worlds. And it's great to have you here.
MCCARTHY: Thanks.
BROWN: Andrew McCarthy, great to meet you.
MCCARTHY: You too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts in just a few minutes. But coming up next, tonight's "Punch Line." Here's a little taste.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": Everybody's got a solution for the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Just try jiggling the handle. Come on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Now it's time for your Friday night "Punch Line." Our roundup of the best of late night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN: President Obama down there at the White House, they had a state dinner for Mexican President Felipe Calderon held at the White House. Security was very tight, though. Very, very tight. Every door at the White House was guarded by a New York City t-shirt vendor.
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON": Last night at the big White House state dinner, Capricia Marshall, the U.S. chief of protocol, slipped on the White House steps right next to the Obamas. Yes, it was such a nasty spill that BP showed up and tried to put a top hat on her.
JAY LENO, HOST, "THE JAY LENO SHOW": The Mexican president pointed out that he and President Obama have a lot in common. He said they were both presidents of two beautiful countries. They are both left handed, and they both preside over 40 million Mexican people. So I thought --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: That's it for now. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
