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The Politics Behind the Roberts Confirmation; Shrinking Icecap Indicates Global Warming's Advance; Oregon's Death with Dignity Law Faces Challenges

Aired September 29, 2005 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
The bus company under the for the fiery deaths of 24 elderly evacuees during Hurricane Rita reportedly kept faulty inspection records. Investigators say Global Limo had been warned in 2002 that its brake inspection records were not adequate. They suspect that brakes or other mechanical problems might have caused the accident.

High winds and low humidity are fueling a wild fire burning in the Chatsworth area of southern California. The blaze now covers 7,000 acres. It has destroyed at least one home and forced hundreds of people to evacuate. More than 1,300 firefighters are working to contain the fire.

Keep on eye on gas prices. AAA reporting a gallon of self-serve regular unleaded now averages slightly more than $2.81. The government plans to deliver 12 million barrels of reserve crude oil to refineries in October.

And supermodel Kate Moss is said to have checked into a Phoenix rehab clinic. British newspapers there report that she will stay there a month. Moss lost several major contracts after being photographed in a London music studio, apparently snorting cocaine.

As he left his home this morning, John Roberts said he was looking forward to the Senate's vote to confirm him as chief justice today. There was really no suspense in Roberts' confirmation, but there still are questions over where he might lead the court. Also, a big question about who the president next will nominate to the high bench.

For a look at where things stand, let's bring in our Bill Schneider, our senior political analyst. Bill, good morning.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: It was a strong vote in favor of John Roberts. What did you see, though, behind the votes?

SCHNEIDER: Well, interesting. Politics, yes indeed. Every Republican in the Senate, 55 of them, voted for Roberts. The Democrats split 22 for, 22 against. You can't get any more divided than that. Politics? look at this. There are five Democratic senators running for reelection next year in states that George Bush carried last year. How did they vote? Every one of them voted to confirm John Roberts. There are also five senators, five Democrats, who are thinking about running for president. Four of those five voted no, voted against Roberts. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and John Kerry. Only one of them, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted for confirmation of John Roberts. So yes, there was some politics.

KAGAN: Yes, very interesting. There was almost a sense of yes, yes, this is a no-brainer, the guy's really bright. He's replacing William Rehnquist, another conservative. Let's move on. Who you got up next to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat? That's what people seem to be really waiting for.

SCHNEIDER: That's right. There are already ads coming out about the next Supreme Court nomination. Within minutes of Roberts' confirmation, the president is under lots of conflicting pressures.

I'd say that there are four. One, find someone who has professional qualifications as close to John Roberts as possible. Number two, find someone who will satisfy the president's conservative base. Number three, find someone who's acceptable to the mainstream, who's not too doctrinal a conservative to provoke a big political fight. Fulfilling those last two could be very be tough.

And fourth, he has to -- he says he wants to have a diverse Supreme Court. So he's under pressure to find a woman or a minority to name. A lot of people say, well, he's got to come up with a female John Roberts, or a Hispanic John Roberts. That could be very tough.

KAGAN: There aren't a lot of John Roberts out there. Meanwhile, as the Democrats speak up and say they want certain things, really what power do they have to influence this situation? You saw how the vote for John Roberts went. As you pointed out, they were split down the middle right there. They don't have the numbers, really, to prevent President Bush from putting on the court who he wants on the court.

SCHNEIDER: Well, one word. Filibuster. The Democrats are threatening that if President Bush names a new nominee to the Supreme Court who is, quote, "in extraordinary circumstances" -- that is, too far outside the mainstream, they reserve the right to filibuster. And Republicans, of course, reserve the right to cut off filibusters for judicial nominees, the so-called nuclear option.

That war could come down the line if the president names someone who's too controversial. Democrats have 44 votes in the Senate; Republicans, 55. You need 60 votes to stop a filibuster. And Republicans are just shy of that number.

KAGAN: All right. Bill Schneider from Washington. Always great to talk with you.

SCHNEIDER: Good day.

KAGAN: Thank you.

We do expect that swearing in to come at about 3:00 p.m., in about two and a half hours, live from the White House. Justice Stevens will be doing the honors of swearing in the new chief justice of the United States.

Just ahead, we're looking at global warming. New pictures of icecaps melting. What does it mean and what is the science behind it? Just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: This just in to CNN. News out of Iraq. Five U.S. soldiers were killed in Ramadi in Iraq. It happened Wednesday. Now we're hearing from the military they were killed by an improvised explosive device, an IED. This coming from the U.S. Marines. The soldiers were assigned to the second marine -- the Marine Expeditionary Force, and they died while conducting combat operations. The number of U.S. troops to die in the Iraqi war now stands at 1,936. More news after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Scientific news for you now. Some scientists have discovered that the arctic icecap is melting at a faster rate than ever. To get a lowdown on what that's about, let's bring in Vicki Arroyo, director of Policy and Analysis at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Good afternoon. Thanks for being here with us.

VICKI ARROYO, PEW CENTER: Hi. Thanks, Daryn.

KAGAN: I'm going to get to the pictures and the computer- generated images of the icecaps in a moment. First, let's talk about the thing people are talking about, whether it makes for good science or not. You're looking as these a two intense hurricanes that have hit the Gulf Coast in the last month. People want to link that with global warming. Is one related to the other?

ARROYO: It's a logical question. I think the thing to keep in mind is that scientists can't link any one specific event, or even two events back to back like this, to climate change. We can't say that global warming caused Katrina or Rita, but they could well have been made worse by climate change. They could have been more devastating and more intense because of global warming.

KAGAN: Is there a natural cycle to hurricanes?

ARROYO: Yes, there's absolutely a natural cycle to hurricanes. And there's no evidence yet that the frequency of hurricanes would be different because of climate change. We have cycles. They last for a couple of decades at a time. We had them in the early 1900s, in the mid 1900s, and then now we've had them since 1995, a very high rate of hurricanes, relatively speaking, but we're in the middle of that cycle now. So we can't say that climate change has necessarily made them more frequent, but there is new evidence, reports in "Science" and "Nature," to say that hurricanes are actually becoming more intense, and we're more likely to see category-four and five hurricanes because of global warming, because of the warming of the oceans.

KAGAN: Yes, let's talk about warmer ocean temperatures. The warm waters are the things that fuel the hurricanes.

ARROYO: Precisely.

KAGAN: And you're finding that the oceans where the hurricanes develop are like a degree warmer?

ARROYO: Yes, exactly. On average, the globe has already warmed one degree Fahrenheit. And we expect future warming because of antroprogenic (ph) emissions, because of the human emissions of greenhouse gases, CO2, carbon dioxide from cars and from power plants and from that kind of thing, and that has warmed the atmosphere already one degree Fahrenheit, and the oceans as well. The temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were actually between one and two degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they otherwise would be when Katrina moved from class one to class-five hurricane.

KAGAN: You know, Vicki, there are people that don't buy into the whole global-warming argument, and they say this is a natural evolution of the Earth, and if things are changing, the earth has always changed even before dinosaurs, and that man is not even strong enough to put things into the environment to effect change.

ARROYO: Right, Daryn. But certainly there have been cycles and there have been other things like sun activity that have generated changes in the past. But we are putting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, more than otherwise would be there, and so therefore we're creating more of a greenhouse effect. The natural greenhouse effect lets us live on this planet. We're glad for that. But the emissions of fossil fuels are creating a blanket, if you will, that's warming the Earth at a quite fast rate, and that's why we're seeing some of the changes that we're seeing, at the staggering rates that we're seeing, where we have glaciers melting, ice sheets breaking off, the permafrost in Alaska not being permanent anymore. And we signs like European heatwaves, and perhaps now the intensification of hurricane activity from climate change.

KAGAN: Vicki Arroyo, from the Pew Center for Global Climate change, thank you.

ARROYO: Thank you.

KAGAN: Good to talk to you.

There is a lot at stake when new justices are appointed to the Supreme Court. We are going to introduce you to one man who was watching the balance of the court as he fights over for control over whether or not he dies. That is not the man.

But I can tell you that is the man who is John Grisham, the best- selling author, vowing to rebuild hurricane-damaged Biloxi, Mississippi. He takes us on a tour of the city, shows us what needs to be done and talks about why he has such a personal connection to this town.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: So John Roberts will hear his first cases as chief justice when the Supreme Court convenes next week. Among those will be a challenge to Oregon's Death-With-Dignity law. Oregon is the only state that allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medicine to terminally ill patients.

Our special correspondent Frank Sesno has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK SESNO, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a good day for Greg Yaden, so he's off to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes. But at 59, he knows he hasn't got much fishing left. You see, about a year ago, Greg collapsed after a business trip. He ended up in the hospital. The diagnosis, acute myeloid leukemia. Chemotherapy bought some time, but doctors could not find what Greg needed most, a suitable bone-marrow donor. The disease is moving fast now, and Greg measures his future in death.

GREG YADEN, TERMINALLY ILL PATIENT: Yes, I'm scared, but I'm also accepting it. I would be terrified if I didn't have some say in how this was going to end.

SESNO: Greg is taking charge of his death. He showed me the room where he plans to die.

YADEN: All my friends can come up and visit and that sort of thing. We'll have a hospice up here.

There are a series of questions.

SESNO: And read from this form he signed, requesting a lethal dose of barbiturates.

YADEN: I understand the (INAUDIBLE) of this request, and I expect to die when I take the medication to be prescribed. I'm not going to take it unless I'm really, really, really losing it. And so, it's not going to be, oh, gosh, I'm committing suicide. It's like, oh, God, please release me from this, I just can't take this anymore. You know, give me some help here.

SESNO: Greg's help comes from his fellow Oregonians who twice have voted for the state's Death-With-Dignity Act, the only such law in the country. It allows a doctor to write a lethal prescription if a patient is certified, mentally competent, and within six months of death from disease.

Between 1997 and 2004, 208 terminally ill Oregonians took their lives in this way, the vast majority saying they wanted some autonomy at the end, as does Greg. YADEN: If there was any question I could live, I'd be fighting tooth and nail. I would fight tooth and nail. But the work of fate, whatever, you know, I don't. I don't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not what we need.

SESNO: Greg's prescription, Oregon's law, has triggered a debate has passionate as it is eternal. Who controls life and death?

For 38 years, Dr. Kenneth Stevens has been a radiation oncologist in Oregon. He believes the Death-With-Dignity Act breaks faith with patients and his profession.

DR. KENNETH STEVENS, "AGAINST RIGHT TO DIE": What I see with the suicide is that a patient is basically saying, I want to die. Breathing is my symptom, and the cure for that breathing is to cause my death, and that is not what medicine is about.

SESNO: The United States Justice Department agrees. In 2001, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, it challenged Oregon's law, and lost, but the government appealed, so now the Supreme Court will decide.

Greg Yaden doesn't know if he'll still be around when it is argued, BUT he has a message for everyone involved, especially the justices who will hear the case.

YADEN: I would just ask what business is it of yours? Do you know what I've gone through? Do you know what I'm going through?

SESNO: Missy, Greg's partner for 12 years, is right there with him.

MISSY HECTOR, GIRLFRIEND: And the ferns are doing good.

SESNO: They faced the disease and his decision together.

HECTOR: He's terminal. He's not changing what's going to happen to him. He's just hastening it in a manner to give him peace of mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking at today's patient list...

SESNO: Dr. Nick Gideons (ph), director of a family health clinic with more than 2,000 patients, is not Greg's doctor, but he has written seven lethal prescriptions and been present at five deaths.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I won't deny that I've cried at times around this. But it's been a tremendous privilege. I feel that I've relieved suffering in a very palpable, real way for patients. And I think I've also helped families honor their family members' final wishes in the face of terrible illness.

SESNO: The Supreme Court will determine whether doctors like Gideons can continue to write prescriptions, or whether they're in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. Gideons is well aware of the legal and moral arguments, and the Hippocratic Oath, I noticed, that hangs on the wall.

(on camera): I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I can provide aid in having the good death that they hope for, I don't feel I'm breaking any of the oath or -- our goal is to help patients in any way that we can.

STEVENS: I could not do it. I would become an executioner rather than a healer.

SESNO: And you've been their radiologist?

(voice-over): Dr. Steven's opposition to Oregon's law isn't just professional, it's also very personal. Shortly before his first wife died of cancer in 1982, her doctor suggested an extra large dose of morphine.

STEVENS: As I helped my wife to the car, she said, Ken, he wants know kill myself. And it really devastated her that her doctor, her trusted doctor, would basically feel that her life is no longer of value.

SESNO: None of this changes the way Greg Yaden or those close to him, including his brother Dave, see things.

DAVE YADEN, BROTHER: For those who say we should be in the business of living. Well, my brother's dying, period. He's going to be dead. He ought to have a chance to do that in a way that gives him as much comfort and the rest of us as possible.

SESNO: Greg doesn't know if he'll swallow the bitter liquid at the end, but he sees it as an insurance policy he'll use if he must.

YADEN: We'll call ahead and say we have an expected death. They won't then send an ambulance with sirens screaming and bells ringing. And so -- my neighbors don't know, we're close. So, just go to sleep.

SESNO (on camera): On your terms.

YADEN: On my terms.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN And the Supreme Court will hear arguments in that case on October 5th. It's just one of several major cases facing the Supreme Court this session. Find out what's at stake when CNN presents a special report Sunday night at 8:00 eastern.

The city inspired scenes in his books and is home to many of his long-time friends. Coming up, how author John Grisham plans to help rebuild Biloxi, Mississippi, after the storm.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAGAN: Earlier this hour, actually earlier today, we told you how best-selling author John Grisham is doing and what he can do to help rebuild his adopted home state of Mississippi. Grisham and his wife live in north Mississippi, but they've put up $5 million of their own money to help the Gulf Coast.

Our Anderson Cooper has the rest of their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Grisham and his wife Renee come to Biloxi today to see how they could be of help.

JOHN GRISHAM, AUTHOR: I mean, we see it all of the time on televisions, different storms and disasters and you kind of get numb to it, but when you're here on the site amidst the rubble with a friend, it's -- you can really understand what they're going through.

COOPER: They visit their long-time friend, Lucy Denton, whose house has been completely destroyed.

GRISHAM: This is the pool house and...

LUCY DENTON, FRIEND OF GRISHAM'S: Yeah, the arbor was there with the fireplace and the pool was there.

COOPER: Lucy's husband, Will, who died this past December was an attorney in Biloxi and helped fact check several of Grisham's best selling books.

GRISHAM: We'd usually have coffee or tea or something and sit here on the porch for long periods of time talk about everything, you know, mainly lawyers, lawsuits, and stuff like that. That's what Will was, he was a great trial lawyer.

COOPER: Lucy Denton wasn't going to evacuate her dream home until a friend convinced her to leave the day before Katrina hit.

DENTON: I really was in denial. I didn't think it was going to happen to me and I didn't even want to leave until Sunday morning when a friend called and said I had to. And then when I got word that, you know, my son called me and he said, "Mom, I hate to tell you this, it's gone." And I said, "How do you know that?" And I didn't want to -- and he said, "Because a friend of mine drove by there who works with the power company and he said it was flat." And so, you know, you just don't think it's going to happen to you.

COOPER: Like many residents of Biloxi, Lucy doesn't have flood insurance.

DENTON: Well, we're hoping the insurance companies are going to be fair. But I can't do anything until we see what's going to happen with the insurance industry.

GRISHAM: And that's why most of these homes there's no cleanup underway.

DENTON: We can't -- we've taken pictures and we've met with adjusters, and we're just waiting to see what happens.

COOPER: The Grishams set up a relief fund for this region and have donated $5 million of their own money. They hope to raise another $5 in donations.

GRISHAM: You know, a lot of folks whose losses are not nearly going to reach what their insurance -- a lot more than their insurance levels, so you're going to have some gaps there where people need, you know, $25,000 here or there for a roof or something that we can step in and maybe make the grant.

COOPER: Everywhere the Grishams went in Biloxi today, they ran into their old friends. At their favorite restaurant, which is already busy rebuilding and at the local library, that's been flooded by the storm.

Grisham and his wife, Renee, are determined to help however they can, ensure that the Gulf will rise again.

Anderson Cooper, CNN, Biloxi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And that wraps up this hour of CNN LIVE TODAY. Much more ahead with Kyra Phillips on LIVE FROM. I'm Daryn Kagan. I'll see you tomorrow.

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