captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. robotic devices were sent deep into the gulf of mexico today to try to seal off oil continuing to leak from a crippled rig. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, 42,000 gallons of oil have poured out of the sunken well each day. we get the latest on the cleanup and the environmental impact. >> ifill: then, the debate over financial reform heats up. first, what internal e-mails reveal about how goldman sachs operated during the mortgage meltdown.

ray suarez gets the details from louise story of the "new york times." >> woodruff: and we get some perspective on the future of financial reform legislation, after party lines were drawn in today's test vote. >> it will reveal who believes needs to strengthen oversight on wall street and who does not. it will demonstrate who believes we need to strengthen the protections for consumers and who does not. >> republicans are also acutely aware of the fact that government solutions to big complex problems like this one are rarely as effective as they're made out to be especially when they're rushed. >> ifill: plus, a jeffrey brown conversation with singer- songwriter natalie merchant on turning poetry about childhood into music. >> i thought i was making the record that would introduce poetry and music to my child and to other children. it just became more involved and more complex and more sophisticated as time went on.

>> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? every day, chevron invests in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building, fueling growth around the world to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron. monsanto. producing more. conserving more. improving farmers' lives. that's sustainable agriculture. more at producemoreconservemore.com.

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>> woodruff: that deep water oil spill in the gulf of mexico slowly spread toward the shore today. the heavy crude was leaking from the site of a sunken rig, 40 miles off the mississippi delta. it covered almost 2,000 square miles as it drifted toward four states, and spread east and west. hundreds of miles of fragile marine eco-systems were in the oil slick path leaving shrimp, fish, coral and barrier islands in jeopardy. the trouble started last tuesday when the oil rig deep water horizon exploded. it sank two days later with 11 workers missing and presumed dead. at first, an oil spill from the rig appeared to be under control. but on saturday, a much larger leak was discovered one mile below the surface at the well head on the ocean floor. it's been spilling up to

42,000 gallons of oil a day since the explosion. charlie henry is with the national orbianic and atmospheric administration. >> the size is hard to get a handle on it in other ways but we can measure the perimeter of it. each day it changes. sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. that's a reflection of how the winds change. we give numbers that show the general size of it but it's always changing a little bit everyday. >> woodruff: bp which leased the rig said it had 700 workers and 32 clean-up ships available, but high seas forced them to suspend operations over the weekend. at the same time, sub mersable robots were trying to activate valves at the well head known as blow-out preventers to cut off the leak. if that doesn't work, this transocean triler could drill relief wells to stop the flow of oil. but it could take months. in the meantime, the weather

could keep the crude from hitting shore for at least three days. but communities from louisiana to florida were bracing for the worst. >> everybody is on alert on the whole coast. you know, they do that for precautions just in case something happens so you've got to get prepared. if we have anything that tries to get inside the harbor area and contaminate the harbor, we can at least contain this area. >> woodruff: it was unclear what else could be done with in-shore shrimp season opening next month and crab season already begun. we have more now the potential impact of the growing spill and the cleanup job ahead. david kennedy is the acting assistant administrator for the national ocean service, a department of n.o.a.a., the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. n.o.a.a. is assisting the coast guard. david kennedy, thank you for being with us. just to help us understand, so this was oil that was coming up through a well head that had been drilled deep in the

gulf and now there's a leak at the well head, two leaks at the well head? >> that's correct. once the rig itself exploded and then caught fire and sunk, the pipe was broken. a blow-out preventer failed initially to shut off the leak. that's where the leak is currently coming from, yes. >> woodruff: what is the force that's pushing the oil out? is it just the pressure from the original drilling? >> it's not so much from the drilling as from the reservoir. this rig was actually drilling into a known reservoir and so there's pressure within that reservoir. that pressure is what's pushing the oil out. >> woodruff: so 42,000 gallons a day is is what's being reported. why did it take from tuesday until saturday to figure out that this leak was there. >> a variety of reasons. to begin with when you have an explosion and a fire, human health is the primary concern so the search for the missing

and rescuing those that did survive was the primary mission . then, too, with a fire and as you mentioned there was a fire for the first couple of days, very difficult to determine just how much product you might have on the water. we knew that the rig itself had diesel oil so a combination of a variety of factors makes it extremely difficult difficult especially when you're searching for survivors to know what the situation is until you have a chance to kind of move on to the assess many, the recovery after the rescue operation. >> woodruff: you're confident or i guess everybody involved is confident now it's the two leaks. there aren't more leaks involved? >> well, i think it's an ongoing issue. when you have something this complex that i think, as you mentioned, is almost a mile deep in the ocean, you're always assessing and evaluating trying to find out more. as of right now, yes, those are the leaks that we're aware

of. i've heard nothing to substantiate any other leaks. >> woodruff: help us understand how difficult it is for this. there's a submersible down there trying to, is it turn valves to affect the blow-ou preventer? help us understand how that works. >> blow-out preventers are not my expertise. i'm more on the effects of the oil and on the environment but i understand just listening to the news that, yes, again 5,000-plus feet below the surface remote vehicle trying to activate the blow-out preventer to actually pinch the pipe off and stop the leak. as you can imagine at 5,000 feet with remotely operated vehicle that's a very difficult process. >> woodruff: let's move to the environmental concern. what are the concerns at this point? i know there's already oil on the ocean floor or the gulf floor. >> well, a variety of concerns. again, we continue to try and assess this. any time you have an event of

this magnitude , there are a number of issues you immediately begin to look at. obviously the first thing is where is that oil going to go? over what period of time is it going to move? in what direction? and where ultimately will it impact? it's bad enough that you have a spill in the ocean. currently with all of the trust resource agencies, we're diligently trying to do overs to see what out there might be affected. the one thing that was reported is that there were sperm whales sighted in the vicinity not in the oil. there's a variety of other types of wildlife in the ocean including marine mammals, birds, fish. we're trying to do the best assessments we can. right now we don't have any specific impacts beyond seeing the whales in the area. but again we are looking at where the oil potentially will go. as the oil gets closer to shore, the types of impact and the magnitude of the issues

really get magnified. >> woodruff: can you describe for us what the eco-systems are, plant and animal life, that are at risk? >> as you, of course, in the deeper water, as i already mentioned, you have marine mammals, turtles, whales that are moving out in the open ocean. if they come in contact with the oil, they're affected in a variety of different ways. it depends on the shape that the oil is in. oil weathers and degrades after it is released. as it gets further and further removed from its actual rerelease, it becomes more sticky. in the beginning you have toxicity is more of an issue with exposure to the marine mammals. as the oil becomes more sticky and tar-like, then the oil adhering either to the feathers of a bird or to a turtle shell or other kinds of marine mammal become more of an issue. as you move closer to shore and you get into more shallow water, gpbding on the energy

and the oil that remains as it begins to get close to shore and impacts the communities near shore we begin to talk about oysters and crabs, of course, and shrimp. all of those are a little closer to shore and in shallower water. primarily. and they begin to be affected as that oil comes close to shore. as you heard earlier, we are now predicting that at least three days until there's any potential shoreline impact. right now the winds have shifted around. we're getting west and north winds which are actually pushing that slick back towards this source and maybe buying us some more time. >> woodruff: how does this compare with previous spills you've had to deal with and others at noaa in. >> i was the science coordinator with the exxon val degrees. we're not into that range yet. a little bit depends on the longevity of this spill. no question, any time you have a spill where you're releasing 42,000 gallons a day in this

country a major spill is in the 50,000-100,000 gallon range so we're already there. but it has the potential to be a very, very much more significant spill than it currently is. the longer it takes to have the blow-out preventer to work. as you mentioned the weeks and potentially months for relief wells, then we begin to get a more and more significant event. >> woodruff: david kennedy with the national ocean service, thank you very much. >> thank you. you're welcome. >> ifill: now, with the other news of the day, here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: major cleanup efforts were under way across the south today after tornadoes ripped through the region over the weekend. mississippi was hit the hardest, with ten people killed and hundreds of homes damaged or destroyed. 32 twisters ravaged the state, and the strongest packed winds of 160 miles an hour. today bulldozers knocked down the wreckage, as survivors struggled to cope with the loss.

>> i don't think it's sunk in yet that it's all gone. every memory that i've made and my three children have made is about to be destroyed, and it will take some time and it will heal. and the important thing is that god protected my family, and they were not injured, and those down the street were not so lucky. >> sreenivasan: federal disaster teams were in mississippi today to survey the damage. the owner of a west virginia coal mine defended itself today. massey energy said air samples taken shortly before a fatal explosion showed nothing unusual. the blast killed 29 miners. a senate hearing on the explosion is set for tomorrow. wal-mart lost a round today in a long-running fight over gender bias claims. a federal court of appeals in san francisco ruled 6-5 that a huge class-action lawsuit may go forward. the suit, filed in 2001, involves more than one million current and former employees. they say wal-mart favors men over women on pay and promotions. the company is the world's largest private employer. the british ambassador to yemen

had a close call today. a suicide attacker tried to kill him, but the ambassador escaped injury. we have a report narrated by jonathan rugman of independent television news. >> reporter: clearing up after a suicide bombing aimed at the british ambassador's car. the ambassador survived, but the bomber is is now dead. the yemenis say he was a student from the south of the country and there have been dozens of arrests. this al qaeda training video shows the group using the british-american and israeli flags as target practice in the desert. but today's attack makes it clear that the capital is not safe. the suicide bomber struck shortly before 8:00 a.m. this morning, as the ambassador drove on his daily commute to the embassy. yemeny officials say the bomber was on foot wearing a track suit and trainers. though the explosion killed the bomber and injured a by- stander nobody in the convoy was hurt.

>> thank you very much. >> reporter: this is the 52-year-old ambassador , said by colleagues to be in good spirits tonight. though this morning al qaeda apparently wanted him dead. >> stability is only going to come with a government which is able to deliver services and the rule of law in an inclusive, comprehensive way. >> reporter: his embassy is built like a fortress. it's in scrubland outside the city and guards armed stall being the roof tops. it briefly closed in january following another al qaeda threat. but it seems the man knew the ambassador's route to work. today's attack marks a change in tactic. the attempted assassination of a single high-profile westerner. though 16 people were killed in an assault on the u.s. embassy back in 2008. and the effects could be profound. not just on the lives of the ambassador and other diplomats

but on foreign investment into this, the poorest country in the middle east where the greatest antidotes to al qaeda are education, money and jobs. >> sreenivasan: in afghanistan, the u.n. scaled back operations in kandahar, after a series of bombings blamed on al-qaeda and the taliban. more than 200 afghan employees were told to stay home. to the north, afghan authorities investigated possible poison gas attacks that sickened more than 80 afghan girls. officials blamed militants who oppose education for girls. man you'll noriega was ex-tra dieted from the u.s. to france today. he finished his u.s. prison sentence for drug trafficking two years ago. he chose to stay on in a florida prison while he fought extradition. the president of sudan the president of sudan, omar al- bashir, has been reelected. that's despite being wanted for war crimes in darfur. the national elections commission declared al-bashir

the winner today. the main challengers had dropped out amid widespread charges of fraud. meanwhile, violence erupted along the country's north-south border area in recent days. more than 50 arab nomads were killed in clashes with army forces. the u.s. supreme court will decide if banning violent games for kids is a violation of free speech. the court agreed today to take a case from california. in 2005, the state banned selling or renting violent games to minors. a federal appeals court threw out the ban last year. the supreme court will hear the arguments this fall. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained a fraction of a point to close at 11,205. the nasdaq fell seven points to close below 2523. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's web site. but for now, back to judy. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, the financial reform debate; and singer- songwriter natalie merchant. but first, the release of the emails from goldman sachs executives. ray suarez has our story.

>> suarez: for a closer look at the content of these e-mails and what the company and its critics are saying about them, we are joined by louise story. she covers wall street and finance for the "new york times."x- ouise, most of these internal goldman sachs communications tell us about what the company knew about the mortgage-derived securities it was selling and backing. >> these have been trickling out since saturday. they really connect the dots in a very important period of goldman's history. back in 2006 and 2007 as the housing market was starting to fall apart, goldman figured it out early. because goldman figured it out early, its executives were able to turn the ship and sell a lot of their housing things and also according to some of these emails get pretty negative on housing. these bets allowed goldman to protect itself from losses and even profit in '07. >> suarez: the u.s. government has released emails. goldman has released emails. there was another document released today.

was there anything new and interesting to you in there. >> the senate committee which will be seeing the goldman executives to talk with them about their mortgage operations, the senate committee today released a document that outlined these emails. there was a press briefing with carl levin who leads that committee. what he said is that it's clear to him that goldman amassed this short position, this negative bet, and that the negative bet allowed goldman to profit. goldman disputes this. goldman says that they lost money on mortgages in '08 and that they were just trying to be neutral on the market. i imagine we'll hear a lot more about that tomorrow. >> suarez: one document released today at 5:00 eastern time was from a goldman trader involved in mortgages and involved in the european exposure who said the company had really damaged its brand over there. >> you're right. there was an email from october '07 written to dan

sparks who is the head of mortgage trading at goldman. that email said, you know, a lot of european investors are very upset with us, with goldman about these deals. we really damaged our brand there. the big question for goldman and all of wall street is, how much have they damaged the reputation with clients, with the public? you know, goldman released the ceo. they released his planned testimony also this afternoon. he is really the most conciliatory that i've seen him. he says he knows americans are angry at wall street and he knows that the deal that is at the center of an s.e.c. against complaint, he knows that deal has made many people angry and perhaps looks bad but he reiterates that goldman does think it has its clients' interest at heart. he said that was one of the worst days of his life. so he's trying to make amends in his testimony.

>> suarez: among the released emails are those from lloyd blankfine himself. one says, of course, we didn't dodge the mortgage mess. we lost money. then made more than we lost because of shorts. he's putting that one out. what's significant about that communication? >> that was from november, '07, that email. when he said "we made money because of shorts," what he's referring to are negative bets against the housing market. and these bets allowed goldman to make money when the housing market went down . this is at the heart of the dispute with the senate committee. whether goldman was out there profiting on the demise of this market that they had participated in, that they had helped build a lot of mortgage securities or whether they were just trying to be neutral. >> suarez: another one from david veneer. tells you what might be happening to people who didn't have the big short. that, as a phrase, has entered the coverage of this story, hasn't it?

the big short. what is that some. >> it has. there's a new book out, the title is "the big short" referring to some hedge fund managers who got really negative in the housing market. but yet the c.f.o. wrote this in july '07 he's refer to go the negative bets against housing. they made these bets in a variety of ways. one of the ways they made them was by owning insurance on mortgage bonds that paid out to them if the mortgage bonds went bad. some of that insurance was put inside deal called and cuss. one and cuss deal is in the s.e.c. complaint. it's connected with the s.e.c. complaint, the senate committee connecting the dots on what did goldman do and why did they do it and when. >> suarez: in his testimony prepared for tomorrow doesn't lloyd blankfine deny the existence of a big short. >> he does say that he vigor disputes the idea that goldman was consistently and significantly short. he refers to a loss they took

in their mortgage book in 2008 where they give money when losses on mortgages moved up into less risky sorts of loans. the ones called prime loans. then fwoldman lost money. people dispute it. some people who i have spoken with have said you really have to look at '07 on its own as well because bonuses at goldman to the executives and the traders are paid each year. in '07 they were paid out of those profits from what veneer called the big short. you can argue it both ways. certainly goldman will argue for its good intentions tomorrow . >> suarez: louise story, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> ifill: the debate over financial reform started to get under way in the senate today right up until today's key procedural vote, republicans and democrats continued to spar over the details of what would be the most sweeping overhaul of u.s. financial

regulation since the great depression. three hours before the vote, senate majority leader harry reid accused republicans of putting the economy at risk. >> today's vote to begin debate on wall street accountability will answer many questions. it will reveal who believes we need to strengthen oversight on wall street and who does not. it will demonstrate who believes we need to strengthen the protections for consumers and who does not. and in light of the extraordinary effort we've seen from the republican leadership, will force each senator to publicly proclaim whether party unity is is more important than economic security. >> ifill: meanwhile minority leader mitch mcconnell insisted that republicans support efforts to, in his words, tighten the screws on wall street. >> as we consider this legislation today, republicans are also acutely aware of the fact that government solutions to big, complex problems like this one are rarely as effective as they're made out to be especially when they're rushed.

and republicans are conscious of something else this morning too. when it comes to fixing the problems that we see in the economy or in our health care system or anywhere else , the days of taking the democrats' word for it are over. >> ifill: republicans oppose creating a $50 billion fund to help liquidate troubled financial firms. they contend it lead to future bailouts. they also disputed the need for a proposed consumer protection watchdog and plans to regulate the derivatives market. appearing sunday on nbc's "meet the press" democratic senator chris dodd chair of the banking committee made the democrats' case. >> here we are 17 months after someone broke into our house in effect and robbed us and we still haven't changed the locks on the doors. we need to get it done. >> ifill: in return republican richard shelby said that despite the disagreements a deal is very close. >> i think we will get a bill if the democrats want a bill

and will give us some things that we think that are substantive in nature like make the "too big to fail" send a message that nothing is too big to fail in this country and tighten up the language and some flexibility in the language there that we're talking about. >> but this is inches you're talking about. >> inches sometimes are miles. i'm hoping there are half inches. >> ifill: public opinion seems to lead in the democrats' favor. a new "washington post"/abc news poll showed about two thirds of those surveyed support stricter regulations. at the white house, spokesman robert gibbs said ultimately the bill's opponents will have to give way. >> i think in the end we're going to get a bipartisan vote because i think the position they're in right now is just simply untenable. >> ifill: any bill that does emerge from the senate will have to be combined with a separate measure that has already pass the house. the remaining sticking points boil down to an essential question . would this bill go too far or

not far enough? we get a range of views. yves smith writes the blog naked capitalism and heads the financial advisory firm, aurora advisers. she's part of a coalition of economists, former regulators and others raising objections to the bill. alan blinder is a professor of economics at princeton. he is a former vice chairman of the federal reserve and served on president clinton's council of economic advisers. robert glauber of harvard university. he was undersecretary of the treasury during the tenure of president george h.w. bush. and robert litan is a senior fellow of economic studies and global economy at the brookings institution. mr. glauber, i'll start with you. picking up on where we left off with senator shelby when he talked about the "too big to fail" question. would this bill as it is emerging now do enough to break up those bill banks or those big financial institutions that abused the process? >> i think by designating a

large number of them as important systemically it puts them on a list of institutions that are too big to fail. i think that's a mistake. it's just not the right way to approach solving the problem of bailing out banks. >> ifill: alan blinder, what do you think? does this do enough to get to the heart of that problem? >> i think it comes pretty close. there isn't any perfect solution. i disagree with my friend bob glauber. the approach i've always favored or i shouldn't say always but since all this came up is name the "too big to fail" institutions and then penalize them. subject them to higher capital and liquidity charges, tighter supervision and so on. it's simply not realistic to think that in the future if some gigantic financial institution is going under, maybe pulling down a lot of other institutions with it, we're just going to sit by and watch it happen. >> ifill: does this bill do that, what you're suggesting? i think it does. one notable thing in the dodd bill that a lot of people like myself that we're talking

about systemic resolution before had two alternatives in mind. both are actually useded in practice: receiveorship which is a way to lay it to rest and conservatorship which is a way to bring it back to life in a safer way. the dodd bill only perceives receivership so it's a death sentence to these banks that go into that procedure. >> ifill: do you see a death sentence for these "too big to fail" banks? >> i'm concerned that the provisions for doing even that are not realistic. the very biggest institutions are global. this is a u.s. bill. as a consequence they have foreign operations which are subject to legal jurs divisions that we don't control. so the very notion that the very biggest institutions could be put into receivership under a u.s. regime is a non-starter. >> ifill: you don't agree with alan blinder that receivership is a tough enough approach. what would you prefer to see? >> well, we've got two separate problems. i'm a little bit distressed that the problem is being

framed as "too big to fail." there are some institutions that are large enough that, yes, you're talking bank of america or a wells fargo they're so large that they pose a threat. for example, before the crisis, no one would have thought that bear stearns was on a systemically important list. it isn't merely a matter of their size. it's a matter of the position that some of these trading firms occupy in certain markets. so it's a multilayered problem that's being approached in a simplistic fashion. >> ifill: robert litan, let's talk about size. is that what matters here? >> well, i think it's not just size but it's also the degree of interaction. i think yves was talking about bear stearns, for example, of having too many positions open with respect to other parties. that was one of the reasons, in fact, the main reason, that the government tried to marry it off. so i think actually the dodd bill strikes the right balance. it uses actually two procedures to address this problem. on the one hand, it sends non-bank large institutions

into bankruptcy court as a first resort and only as a last resort in case of a national emergency do you end up with the fdic or the government putting it into receivership and giving it a death sentence that alan talked about. >> ifill: let me stay with you, bob lit after an and ask you when this question about whether this government rescue plan they're voting on tonight and will be voting on in a series of votes for the week at least, will this stop future government rescues? we've heard many of the opponents of this bill saying this is a guarantee of future bailouts. >> i actually believe regardless of which party the president is that in a future national emergency, there will be a temptation to bail out, if you will, creditors of a large institution in order to save the economy. i don't care who is president. the issue really is how to make bailouts less likely and safer so or safer for thesome so that we don't have to bail out people.

i think the dodd bill moves in the right direction. nothing is perfect as alan talked about but i think the bill goes a long way in the right direction. >> ifill: robert glauber, i want to ask you about that. do you think it goes enough in the right direction when it comes to question of guaranteeing against future bailouts? >> i don't think it goes enough in the right direction. i think it fail s, for example, to have a really coherent regulation of institutions other than banks that could get into trouble. the kinds of institutions like bear stearns. this is very complicated stuff. it would really have been better if sho congress could have presented this and approached it in a bipartisan way, taken its time, gotten a bipartisan debate over these very complicated issues. i think it arrived at a better solution than they have. >> ifill: given the way you've seen congress not work together in a bipartisan way on so many different issues this year, why do you believe that that would have fixed the substance of this particular approach?

>> well, simply because the issue is is no longer partisanship. you can have a debate among people who respect each other and are knowledgeable. you're going to get to better answers on what are very, very complicated issues. bob litan, alan blinder, yves, have all pointed out how complex these issues are. up can't do had in a partisan environment. i believe if we had gotten beyond the next election there was a chance of having less than a totally partisan environment. >> ifill: alan? >> i think we've waited a long time. this crisis is getting long in the tooth. we had a quite good proposal from the u.s. treasury back last june. the house acted already in december. as we know from media reports not my firsthand knowledge , chris dodd made tremendous efforts to try to get some bipartisanship in the senate. the senate republican leadership just pulled the plug.

there were serious negotiations going on several times. indeed you can see some of the traces of that bipartisanship in the bill that is now presented as a partisan bill because having gotten some concessions none of the republicans want to support it. i very much agree with bob glauber. it would be better to do on a bipartisan basis. suppose one side won't play in the game? then i think we have to go forward. >> yves smith i want to talk to you about one of the other hot button issues which have come up lately in the debate over this book. that's about the kpliblgted betting process in which people are trying to bet against what these instruments will do in the future. do you think this bill goes far enough or is it trying ... throwing the baby out with the bath water taking what is in essence not a bad idea but then overregulating it? >> actually again i come at it slightly differently. on the one hand the core idea in the bill-- that of clearing

derivatives centrally-- will reduce risk. the problem is that some of these derivatives and in particular credit default swaps. that approach will not be sufficient. this is a bit technical. one of the issues with credit default swaps is when a particular company gets in trouble on which a credit default swap has been written, the payout jumps massively. they call it jump to default. you may think you've got that position covered. suddenly they're not. it's like a tsunami coming in. suddenly there are a lot of people who may not be ale to settle on those wagers they've written. the central clearing mechanism will not solve this inherent problem with credit default swaps that suggests that we need stricter approaches there. >> ifill: is that something that is fixable in something like this? you mentioned it's a really complicated issue. it's a complicated fix too. especially for a legislator. >> well, no, if real issue with a credit default swap in my opinion need to be regulated much more aggressively. you know, specific procedures to try to discourage their

use. that's not a philosophy that's very popular with the financial services industry. it's been a very profitable product for them. >> ifill: robert glauber, as you look at this process as it played out whether it's partisan, non-part son, whether it's identified the right problems to solve. do you think on balance that this process that congress is going through now is going to end up fixing the problem at hand, the biggest problems at hand or is it going to create bigger problems to be solved down the road? >> i think it will fix a number of problems at hand. i think it will go a long way to fixing the derivatives problem which is very important. it extends regulation of safety and soundness regulation to institutions beyond banks which is is a big plus. it won't solve all of them and what's discouraging is we only get an opportunity like this once every 20 or 30 years to do massive regulation in the financial industry. and i think there are so many opportunities mixed that could, in fact, be grasped if we did

this in a more orderly and a more cooperative way. >> ifill: what do you think about that, bob litan? >> actually i wouldn't be so gloomy. we just heard senator shelby talk about the fact that they're inches close to a deal. i think right now what we're seeing is a bunch of maneuvering and we're event yell going to see a compromise. i think event ally we're going to see an overwhelming vote or at least a substantial vote in favor of a bill. the reason is very simple. the public wants a bill. the republicans at the end of the day are not going to vote against this bill at least en mass. they do not want to be accused of siding with wall street which is exceedingly unpopular right now in the public. right now there's a gainsmanship going on. at the end of the day i think we'll see a deal. >> ifill: when all the games are played will you be satisfied with what's in this bill? sometimes the games can obscure the essential problem you're trying to fix initially. >> well, i think on a scale of 1-10 it's probably in my view a 7 or an 8. i was encouraged to hear bob

glauber talk about a few of the things he likeded in the bill namely tougher derivatives regulation which is good. i think the too big to fail provisions are actually better than what bob has talked about. i'm sympathetic with alan's view on this. bob talks sympathetically about the fact that the bill will regulate a large non-bank institutions more effectively so i think there are a lot of things to like about it in this bill. there's nothing that's going to be perfect. we're not going to be ale to end all bailouts. we're not going to be able to end all crises but i think this bill will make both bailouts and crises less likely. >> ifill: yves smith, pull out your yardstick and tell me where you think this bill lies in terms of get to go the essential problems that need to fixed. >> i give it a 3 or 4. one of the reasons that the discussion has turned out to be partisan is the fact that people are disagreeing on facts. there is not sufficient understanding of exactly why this crisis came about. there's not been enough forensic work.

in fact, i would... i believe that the public actually would have tolerance for more extended process if there was real serious digging done. when you go back to the 1930s, the crash took place in 1939. we didn't have durable legislation until 1933 and 1934. and a good bit of forensic work had been done at this point. we have a much more complicated financial system and yet we really don't understand the full dimensions of what happened and why. >> ifill: alan, you get the final word on that. >> well, it is true and it's always going to be true that more study could lead to more information. probably would. whether that leads to better legislation, i don't know. the maping from the good information to the good legislation is very fuzzy and often doesn't work. i'm pretty happy with this women. i always say government work should be graded on the curve. by the way there's a frank bill and a dodd bill which would have to be compromised.

if you view the likely compromise of the frank bill and the dodd bill i think it's quite a good piece of legislation. i would inclined to give it an 8. >> ifill: thank you all very much. >> more than welcome. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, singer and songwriter natalie merchant turns to poetry for an unusual musical project. jeffrey brown has our story. ♪ >> brown: natalie merchant has sold millions of records in her life. ♪ starting in the 1980s as singer and songwriter for the rock band 10,000 maniacs. ♪

and later in a successful solo career. but there she was rehearsing for a concert recently at the beautiful music hall in troy, new york, singing other people's words including those of a mother goose rhyme. ♪ after a seven-year hiatus, merchant is releasing a new studio album, a collection of 26 poems she set to music. the project began when merchant gave birth to her daughter six years ago. >> i thought i was making the record that would introduce poetry and music to my child and to other children. but it just became more involved and more complex and more sophisticated as time went on. >> brown: the result is a two- disk album entitled "leave your sleep" using poetry about childhood but for adults.

now 46 and living with her family in a house overlooking the hudson river, merchant says it took her a long while to come to poetry and only then through its sounds and rhythms. >> poetry comes alive to me through recitation. even when i was working on this project some of the poems when i read them the first time i couldn't comprehend the meaning and i couldn't really understand the structure, the internal rhythms and rhymes. >> brown: until you hear it outloud. >> i would have to recite it, speak it. hear the words and feel the words in my mouth. ♪ >> brown: for the album merchant included works by well known poets like robert graves and e.e.cummings and by a number of lessen-known writers including lydia huntly. the poems range from serious meditations, the famous "spring and fall" explaining death to a child. to silly ditties. >>

♪ it's fiddle-de-dumb ♪ >> brown: like the dancing bear which evokes a gypsy camp. ♪ came to town with a jolly old bear and a... ♪ >> it's fun. isn't it? >> brown: it is fun. >> i mean really great. something i wanted to convey to people is poetry doesn't... part of the reason i was so late coming to poetry is because i thought it had to be serious. often times i don't understand . i lack depth. i must just lack depth. i don't understand. but a poet transports you to a place where you can experience what they saw or what they felt, what they smelled, what they touched. ♪ >> brown: musically merchant reached to many genres trying to match each poem with an appropriate style. she also reached out to other

musical stars for help including jazz trumpeter wynton marsalis for the poem the janitor's boy by natalia crane. ♪ on the day we sail out ♪ >> i thought that to really convey childhood through these poems and all aspects of childhood we had to address the loss of innocence and the passage into the next phase of life. this poem is about this boy standing on the key talking to the sailor offering him a silver penny and an apricot tree. >> ♪ had a silver penny and an apricot tree ♪ ♪ the sailor never comes back because a war breaks out.

the boy waits and waits. ♪ where is the sailor? >> it's about disillusionment and the confrontation with the more harsh realities of life. >> brown: growing up. >> yes, growing up! >> brown: while this project began for her daughter, it's clearly also done something important for merchant as well. >> i started talking about the plan to age gracefully in this field 15 years ago. >> brown: you were already thinking about, how am i going.... >> i want to be shaking my booty when i'm 55. that's not what i'm doing. i need to come up with a way. there's so much music that i've wanted to write and i've been interested in that didn't really fit into a pop album format. and now is my time to start

exploring. and carrying through on those visions. >> brown: natalie merchant begins an international tour of her newest works later this spring. ♪ that's all the time i can spare ♪ ♪ innocent slumber like this ♪ ( applause ) >> ifill: finally tonight, a debate over end of life decisions. should society engage in rationing costly health care when recovery is no longer an option? that was the debate held at the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs. arguing for rationing: ira byock, a doctor and director of palliative medicine at dartmouth-hitchcock medical center in lebanon, new

hampshire. and arthur caplan, director of the center for bioethics and a professor at the university of pennsylvania. arguing against rationing: ken connor, chair of the center for a just society and a lawyer in private practice. he represented former governor jeb bush's defense of terri's law, the legislation named for terri schiavo. and marie hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy at the national catholic bioethics center. she is also a registered nurse. the moderator was susan dentzer, editor in chief of health affairs, and an on-air analyst for the newshour. >> some people have said we should dispense with the word "rationing" and just start to talk about rational care. do you think we could ever agree as a society on what rational care is? >> well, i would hope so. let's take a look at what works. let's understand rationally how to handle decision-making authority if you're not competent.

can we set up an understanding that we don't want meddling in direct bedside care that the been i have sense of the doctor should be the ethic we want to see. we don't have much evidence right now about what works and what goes on in health care. i would venture to say we don't even know what prices are. we don't know what we're paying for most of the time. anybody who has looked at a hospital bill has been through an experiment in some kind of as troll gee. ... astroll gee. could we get more rational than we are now? that would be very easy to achieve. would that spare us rationing? i don't know. i don't think so but i think it would help guide again the decisions that we're going... the tougher decisions that are looming out there. >> you were perking up. >> we're not rational at all as a society, as a cull culture. avoidance of death is pervasive in our society.

i don't want to think about it captures the american approach to dying. denial of death doesn't get easier. sometimes it gets more entrenched. superstition is alive and well in america today. we don't even want to talk about it as if don't talk about that, dad. as if talking about it will make it happen. we have to get over it. we're mortal. we're going to die. let's get over it and start talking about how we can make the best use of the resources that we have available to them... to us, including the best medical care possible. but we ought to do that as a moral society with the stake holders, the governmental stake holders, the ethicists, the marketplace, the pharmaceutical companies. there's a moral, ethical bottom line that we have... they have to join us in as a society in deciding what makes sense. we need to do that with the full acknowledgment that we're mortal and we need to make the best use of our resources for the time that we are given this gift of life. >> we cannot do it all but we have to make sure that good education is done and decisions are made

autonomously with families with physicians who are not made to feel uncomfortable in telling people that this is not going to be in their best interest. we think this treatment, this procedure really is not only not in your best interest but might be hostile. it's hard for physicians and health care providers to do that. we have good programs that help physicians to learn those skills, to work with families. >> you asked the question about ration care. i think that makes a lot of care. the kinds of questions we ought to be asking i think is, is the procedure within the generally accepted standard of care? is it necessary for the patient? is it clinically appropriate? is is the cost reasonable compared to similar services? these are the kinds of questions i think we ought to be asking. but we shouldn't relegate to the faceless bureaucrats the discretion to decide who lives and who dies, who gets

treatment and who doesn't based on things like quality adjusted life years or quality of life calculus or functional capacity studies. old folks with dementia don't score well using quality of life calculus. people who are disabled don't score well using functional capacity studies. but their dignity is not diminished and their life is not worth any less than any other person. we shouldn't have some bureaucrat in washington deciding they don't have a life worth living, end of story, no more care. >> ifill: if you want to watch the entire debate, please check your local public television listings. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. a deep water oil spill in the gulf of mexico spread toward four u.s. states. cleanup efforts were under way across the south after tornadoes killed a dozen people over the weekend. and senate republicans blocked a democratic effort to start debate on the financial reform

bill. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan in our newsroom previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: on art beat, there's more on natalie merchant, including performance clips and an extended interview. on the rundown, patchwork nation's dante chinni looks at what arizona's new immigration law could mean for key congressional races in the southwest. plus, margaret warner is reporting from the vatican this week. find her blog on how the catholic church views transparency in the digital age. and on tomorrow's newshour, watch her exclusive interview with cardinal william levada. his office at the vatican deals with the abuse scandals. here's a short clip. >> this is a crisis, if you will, that i think caught most of us by surprise. one bishop told me this isn't the cruise i signed up for. that's exactly what has happened. i think the pope is not... that was not his training and background. but i think he is the right man to be guiding the church at this time.

>> sreenivasan: all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill; and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: 401(k) savings, life insurance and annuitys to provide a dependable income for the rest of your life. with more than 140 years of experience, pacific life can help you achieve your vision of the future. your financial professional can tell you more about pacific life. the power to help you succeed.

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