and political will. >> we've either got to augment the resources to make the goal achievable, or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources, because if we don't, we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> thanks for my first car. thanks for giving me your smile, your motivation, and your belief that loved ones always come first. we wouldn't be where we are if it were not for the people that helped get us here. don't forget to thank those who helped you to take charge of your future and got you where you are today. the boss of your life. the chief life officer. lincoln financial. you're in charge. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: a white policeman in new york city will not be charged in the choking death of a black man that was caught on videotape. the case has been closely watched in the wake of events in ferguson, missouri. police on staten island tried to arrest eric garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes last july. he told them to leave him alone, but one wrapped an arm around his neck as garner repeatedly gasped, "i can't breathe." it turned out he had asthma, and he died later. the officer denied using a banned chokehold, and a grand jury today found no reasonable cause to indict. that drew outrage from several of new york's members of congress, including representative hakeem jeffries. >> woodruff: garner's father condemned the grand jury decision, calling it, "a license to kill a black man". but he also called for calm, as did new york city mayor bill de blasio, who urged non-violent protest. >> it is never my intention to harm anyone and i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. >> woodruff: and in washington, president obama said the case underscores again, "the larger issues" that minorities have with police in america. >> we are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust, and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement. >> woodruff: a funeral was held for a 12-year-old boy killed by police when he pulled a pellet gun last month. the child was black, the officer white. the "cleveland plain dealer" today reported the officer's handling of firearms was rated as "dismal" in a previous police job. >> ifill: world allies gathered in brussels today to plot strategy against islamic state extremists. diplomats from more than 60 nations and organizations met at nato headquarters. secretary of state john kerry said air attacks have already done serious damage to islamic state fighters. >> we are united and moving ahead on all fronts and that we will engage in this campaign for as long as it takes to prevail. and there is a reason why we are confident that we will, and that is all of you around this table, the members of this coalition. >> ifill: kerry declined to comment or deny reports that iran is also carrying out air strikes against islamic state forces inside iraq. >> woodruff: iran issued its own denial today of those air strike reports. unnamed pentagon officials had said iran used aging f-4 phantom jets to launch the raids in recent days. but in tehran, a government spokesman said iran's support for iraq has not expanded to include direct military intervention. >> ( translated ): there has been no change. the islamic republic of iran continues to provide assistance, especially advice and consultation assistance within the frameworks of international law, but there has been no change in this regard. >> woodruff: and in syria, president bashar assad said today that air strikes against islamic state targets in his country have done no good. he told a french magazine that only ground troops can defeat the militants. >> ifill: meanwhile in baghdad, the iraqi interior ministry said a woman detained in lebanon is not the wife of the islamic state leader, abu bakr al- baghdadi, after all. instead, a ministry official said she is the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern iraq. >> woodruff: three leaders of hong kong's pro-democracy campaign surrendered to police today, after more than two months of demonstrating for free elections. the men were not immediately charged, and were not detained. afterward, they again urged students to call off protests that have led to violent clashes with police. >> ( translated ): the situation is very dangerous so i hope protesters can end the occupation movement as soon as possible. let's save the energy and continue this path of democracy. this is a long and exhausting road, but we need to walk together. >> woodruff: despite that appeal, hundreds of student demonstrators remained at two protest camps in hong kong's financial hub. >> ifill: back in this country, drought-ravaged california soaked up a second day of heavy rainfall from a major pacific storm. more than eight inches had fallen in parts of the san bernardino mountains by dawn. to the north, the downpours spawned isolated flooding in the san francisco region, where some roads were under water. forecasters said they expect the rain to last through tomorrow. even so, it's expected to take many more storms to break the drought. >> woodruff: the republican- controlled house moved to extend $45 billion in tax breaks through the end of this year. the move will allow millions of businesses and individuals to claim the breaks when they file their returns this coming tax season. >> ifill: the house also approved the first new legislation on disabled americans in nearly 25 years. the so-called able act for achieving a better life experience, will let the disabled open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for long-term expenses. it could affect as many as 54 million people. the senate is expected to pass the bill as well. >> woodruff: texas and 16 other states filed suit today over president obama's executive actions on immigration. they went to federal court in texas, arguing the president exceeded his powers by protecting up to five million migrants from deportation. they also claim his actions will force the states to spend more on law enforcement, health care, and education. >> ifill: stocks rallied on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained 33 points to close at 17,912; the nasdaq rose 18 points to close at 4,774; and the s&p added more than seven points to close at 2,074. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. details of the eric garner chokehold case. congress confronts airbag manufacturer takata over deadly defects and recalls. the supreme court weighs arguments on job protections for pregnant workers. nasa's first step to send humans to mars. and, interior secretary sally jewell on plans to restructure schools for native american students. >> ifill: in two cases, in two cities, in less than two weeks, two grand juries declined to indict white police officers accused of killing unarmed black men. but in today's case, in new york, it was on tape. hari sreenivasan has more on the case of eric garner. >> sreenivasan: reaction to the grand jury decision has been sharp and highlights a very tense relationship between police in new york and the communities they serve. it's also a test for its new mayor. joining us now is pervaiz shallwani, criminal justice reporter for the "wall street journal." so surprised? >> you know, i think there is some surprise. i think some people believe that because there was a video in this case there was a little bit more clear-cut path to a charge of some kind. you know, the grand jury ultimately decided that there wasn't. >> sreenivasan: okay. the parallels and the not so parallels with ferguson? >> i think some of the parallels are there is a belief that it's almost impossible to indict a police officer in a case where the autopsy reveals there's a homicide, but there are very different situations here, just, you know, in how they sort of played out, one, and, two, on the ground the way the situation is, i think new york city is a much different situation than ferguson. >> sreenivasan: we played a little bit of the video. i think most of the country is wondering, wait, everyone can see that something horrible happened to this man, that there was a chokehold applied. the new york city police department came out and said, this is not a maneuver that we authorize. the coroner and the medical examiner said this is homicide by choking. yet still the grand jury couldn't come up with it. >> they said it was in part a homicide by choking, but, you know, what the medical examiner determined and how a criminal investigation unfolds is very different. you know, chokeholds are banned by use by the n.y.p.d., but the unions and the office very maintained that it's a maneuver they were taught at the academy and he was using that maneuver and not intended to be a chokehold at all. >> sreenivasan: this evening we heard the mayor say this is just one chapter that's closed. this is something new york city and the police department has been preparing for. >> n.y.p.d. has been preparing for this for weeks. the police commissioner last week after the ferguson riots sent down a couple of his own detectives to learn on-the-ground techniques and get on-the-ground information for how new york city could proceed, you know, when eric garner's decision came down. you still have two other pending investigations. you have an internal affairs investigation that will determine if officer pantaleo was actually in violation of n.y.p.d. protocol. you also have the department of justice announcing that they're opening a civil rights investigation today into the eric garner matter. >> okay. so when these investigations happen, is that going to change the feeling of the cops on the street, the ones that you talk to as you do your reporting? right now what's the position that they're in? >> it's going to depend on how things sort of unfold i think over next couple days. i mean, there is some apprehension on the part of the cops, what you hear from some of the unions out there, but at the same time, you hear the police department say that the cops are going to, you know, go through some retraining, and um mattly they expect officers to do their job. >> sreenivasan: and what kinds of retraining has the police department considered in the wake of this and in the wake of the ferguson case, which while it's different is coming within a week of this. >> sure. the n.y.p.d. announced about a week after the eric garner incident, less than a week after the eric garner incident, that it would retrain all 35,000 officers. that retraining has already begun, particularly this week. it will focus on things like use of force, use of language and retraining of some of these techniques that are used in the field. >> sreenivasan: what about the change that the new york police department went through in the beginning as the garner incident, they said someone died in custody. after the video came out, it was a different narrative altogether? >> i think to listen to the n.y.p.d., they said they didn't realize that there was a video. once they realized there was a video, that video was reviewed. i think they came out and gave what their belief was how the investigation would then move forward out of that. >> sreenivasan: the prosecutor also said today, almost setting the tone, don't expect all of the evidence to be made public as it was in the ferguson matter. >> correct. >> sreenivasan: we don't really know whether he tried to go after a lesser charge of say manslaughter. >> right. i mean, it's not 100% clear what charges were presented to the grand jury. the staten island district attorney has come out and said that, you know, the laws in new york are different than the laws in missouri. and so he is bound we new york laws and must go to a judge to release some information, and it's unclear what kind of information he is seeking to release. in missouri, you know, the laws allowed them to release all the grand jury testimony. >> finally, is there any action that the new york police department can take independent of this grand jury or the department of justice? >> yeah, absolutely. as it pertains to officer pantaleo and even the other officer with him, they have both been placed on modified duety. they're looking into determining if they violated any n.y.p.d. protocols. the n.y.p.d. protocols say there is no use of chokehold allowed. it will be up to internal affairs investigators to determine if officer pantaleo violated that and then up to the board to make a recommendation on what kind of disminute he gets. it could be up to as far as him being fired from the police force by police commissioner bratton. >> pervaiz shallwani of the "wall street journal," thanks very much. >> thanks, hari. >> woodruff: air bag manufacturer takata was back in the spotlight today over it's refusal to endorse a nationwide recall of defective air bags. the japanese firm faced question on that decision and others in a hearing at a u.s. house of representatives. the hearing came just hours after a deadline for takata to expand its recall as demanded by the national highway traffic safety administration or nhtsa. deputy administrator david friedman. >> first of all, i was deeply disappointed by takata's response and takata's failure to take responsibility for the defects that their products. for the defects in their products. >> woodruff: the problem lies with inflators that activate so violently, they cause the air bags to explode. there've been at least five deaths and dozens of injuries linked to the defect worldwide. takata senior vice president hiroshi shimizu insisted again today that only people who live in humid conditions are at risk. >> the data still supports that we should remain focused on the region with high temperature and high humidity. >> woodruff: in line with that thinking, about eight million vehicles have been recalled in the u.s., mostly in florida, hawaii, and along the gulf coast. takata says a nationwide recall would double that figure. the company remained adamant today that a nationwide recall isn't supported by the evidence. but nhtsa's friedman pointed to reports of air bag explosions in other parts of the country. >> between the fact that the root cause on the driver side is not clear now that it's clear that it is outside those areas of high temperatures and high humidity and the fact that we now have six total incidents it is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate for the driver side airbags. >> woodruff: the agency had threatened to take legal action and impose fines of up to $35 million unless takata complied. but the air bag maker took the position today that washington does not have the legal authority to make a parts maker enforce a recall. and, friedman acknowledged it could take a protracted fight. >> we need to make sure that we build the strongest case possible, because at the end of the day, if takata and the auto makers continue to refuse to act, we are going to have to take them to court. we want to make sure we have a case prepared that will win. >> woodruff: a number of lawmakers voiced frustration that even replacing the air bags recalled so far will take months to complete. and they let takata's vice president know it. >> complexity is not an excuse for incompetence. >> constituents who are literally afraid to drive their cars. >> woodruff: across the capitol, at a senate confirmation hearing, the man nominated to run nhtsa, mark rosekind, was pressed to make the agency more aggressive. massachusetts democrat ed markey. >> you must make takata recall all these airbags, you must force auto comps to comply, there is no choice, safety of american people is at stake. takata is toying with safety of american people. >> woodruff: but the weight of public opinion may be having some effect: today, honda one of takata's biggest customers announced it will expand its own recall of driver-side air bags to all 50 states. >> ifill: today, the supreme court heard arguments in the case of peggy young, a former u.p.s. driver, who says the company discriminated against her when she was pregnant. u.p.s. placed young on unpaid leave for several months, because she was unable to perform her required duties. young's lawyers say the company's actions violated the pregnancy discrimination act. women's rights groups and members of congress rallied outside the supreme court this morning to support young's argument. but there are at least two sides to the argument. joining us to describe what happened inside the court today: marcia coyle of the national law journal. emily martin, vice president and general counsel for the national women's law center. and, karen harned, executive director of the national federation of independent business's small business legal center. let's look at this 1979 law, '78 law. if i put on my glasses, i can see it. it says discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is illegal and pregnant women should be treated the same as all other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work. sounds pretty straightforward and pretty simple. >> simple until you get into the supreme court and start arguing what the language means. today the arguments really focus primarily on that second clause, how to treat pregnant workers. ups has argued and it argued today that it has basically a pregnancy-blind policy. it offers accommodations to workers whose injuries occur or conditions develop on the job, not off the job. so it's not singling out pregnant workers. they are being treated like all of ups' other workers who have injuries or conditions that develop off the job. it looked at that second clause and said, that's not a free-standing, independent claim to charge discrimination against u.p.s. it is tied to the basic prohibition against pregnancy discrimination. well, miss young's attorney says, let's look at the language of that clause again. it says nothing about on-the-job, off-the-job distinctions. it also doesn't speak to the cause or the source of the limitation on the worker. instead it says, "you're to compare the pregnant worker's limitation with a non-pregnant workers who have similar limitations on their ability or inability to do the job." and also he claims ups doesn't have a pregnancy-blind policy because it does offer accommodations to workers who lose their department of transportation certificate. it allows them to drive. it also accommodates with workers with conditions recognized by the americans with disabilities act. >> ifill: i gather this is a lively set of arguments. >> very lively. justice scalia and some other justices looked at the way mrs. young's attorney reads that clause. justice scalia used the phrase, "it's so broad the way you're reading it that you're seeking most-favored nation treatment for pregnant workers." well, he was sort of expressing the concern that businesses that are supporting ups say here, that any time an employer gives an accommodation to a worker with a limitation, regardless of how it happened or its severity, a pregnant worker is going to seek that same accommodation. but on the other side, justices ginsburg and justice kagan, for example, said that ups' reading is so narrow that it is giving least-favored nation treatment to pregnant workers. and also the reading, according to justice kagan, it really makes the second clause redundant here, meaningless, and congress could not have intended to do that. >> ifill: the administration had argued against bringing this case. now it's on the other side. how did that flip happen? >> well, it didn't argue because it didn't think the case was not worthy, but the administration did have a change of policy. for many years it read that section the same way that ups reads it. in 2014, this year, over the summer the equal employment opportunity commission issued new guidance. its guidance on this supports mrs. young's interpretation of the law. since the department of justice does follow eeoc guidance, that is how the administration is pursuing these cases now. >> ifill: karen harned, i want to start with what the debate is. is this a debate between employees' rights and employers' rights? >> well, it's really a debate between... we would first say it's a debate on what the law actually says, and we would be in the category that we definitely believe that if miss young were to prevail, it would create a super protective class for the pregnant worker. our concern really is that there needs to be limits. if miss young were to prevail, there wouldn't be the limits that you even see with the americans with disabilities act where if an accommodation would be an undue hardship on a business, that would be considered and qiewd also look at whether or not the accommodation was reasonable. these are really questions that are better answered in congress and the state legislatures, not through the supreme court we think rewriting the law. >> ifill: emily martin, are we just arguing this debate in the wrong place? >> i think this case is critically important because it's about whether the pregnancy discrimination act means what it says. it's of critical importance for women around the country. unfortunately, peggy young's story is not unique. at the national women's law center we hear again and again from women who have lost their job, have lost their paycheck because their employer refuses to make a simple accommodation like letting the cash sheen sit at a stool during an eight-hour shift late in her pregnancy. as a result, women are being forced to choose between their jobs and a healthy pregnancy. that's not a choice anybody should have to make. >> ifill: what is the difference, i want to ask the two of you, what's the difference between o'mitting coverage for a protected class or actively discriminating? >> what is your sense about that? >> well, i think, and ups argued this today, there are good business reasons why a company is going to have different classes of benefits for different classes of employees. part-time versus full-time. in this instance those injured on the job versus those not, which is very common. you need to be able to have that flexibility, and then also for the small employer in particular, their ability to backfill and make up for work lost by an miy is much more difficult when you're looking at a workforce of 15 or 16 than with one of 200 or more. >> do the anti-pregnancy discrimination laws that exist rule out allowing that protected class for this particular subset of employees? >> the pregnancy discrimination act was passed for a very specific reason, to repudiate a previous supreme court case from 1976 where the supreme court said it's not sex discrimination for an employer to have a temporary disability insurance policy that covers all accidents and injuries and excludes pregnancy. congress said very clearly, no, you have to treat pregnancy the way you treat other disabilities and injuries that can have an effect on a person's ability to work. that was the precise purpose of the pregnancy discrimination act, to keep pregnant workers from being treated like second-class citizens in the workplace. >> ifill: so what you're saying is the argument that karen cane makes is a second-class citizens argument? >> i think that what ups is arguing is that the fact they have found a way to accommodate people with on-the-job injuries, people with disabilities under the a.d.a.m., people who have lost their commercial driver's license, that should mean that they can accommodate pregnant workers, too. that's exactly what the pregnancy discrimination act was intended to create. >> ifill: it should be said that both ups has changed their policy and the eeoc has changed its guidelines since this case came. >> i would put to all employers, this one-size-fits-all is not going to work. when you're talking about small workforce, maybe a small restaurant with only three servers working over the weekend, you lose one of those servers or some of their abilities to work, that's much harder for a small business owner to address. that's why you need the balance that you get in things like the americans with disabilities act where you're also looking at undue hardship, what is a reasonable accommodation for those business operations to continue. those are debates that need to happen in congress, not at the court. >> but the pregnancy discrimination act only requires equal treatment. so it requires the employer to do for the pregnant worker what it's already doing for another worker who has a similar inability to work. >> ifill: one of the thing i find most interesting about this case is the odd bedfellows that agree on this. you seldom see pro-life and pro-choice making the same case. >> i can't remember when that has happened in the past. you have civil liberties group, women's rights group, as you said, i think something like 23 pro-life organizations have all joined to support miss young. >> ifill: what is the common thread? >> the need to ensure that pregnant women who are in the workforce do get equal treatment and aren't forced, as miss young was, to go on unpaid leave, where she also least her health insurance. on the other side of ups, as you would expect, are businesses large and small and also a rather conservative women's group, the eagle forum. >> ifill: marcia coyle, emily martin and karen harned of the national federation of independent business, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: for the first time in more than four decades, nasa is set to launch a space capsule tomorrow that has grander plans of human exploration into deep space. the liftoff for the orion spacecraft will be unmanned. but it is an important test flight, and the first of many, as nasa tries to chart a longer- term vision for human flight. science correspondent miles o'brien has our report. > at a 50-year-old facility that tested the capsule, engineers are working on ways to protect a crew of astronauts returning to earth from a voyage to mars. >> it's really a whole new ballgame in terms of mission requirements and what we've done before. >> aerospace engineers are working on a thermal protection system for nasa's orion spacecraft, a capsule that has been described as apollo on steroids. >> so what we use is a material called avcoat, it's a derivation of the same material used in the apollo program for the apollo heat shield. on the orion heat shield, there are over 300,000 of these individual cells that are all filled by hand. >> he's using the venerable facility at nasa's ames research center to torch small sam prime ministers of the heat shield with blistering hot gasses moving at hypersonic speeds in a vacuum. it's as close to a real re-entry from space as you can get on the ground. >> this is a four-inch diameter puck. the orion capsule is five meet centers diameter. we really rely at the end of the day on a flight test to tell us how those parts of the system will work. >> eft1 or exploration flight test 1, will subject a orion capsule to a real-world trial by fire on its maiden voyage, giving nasa the data they need and a big milestone. bill hill is a nasa associate administrator. >> eft1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year. >> orion is slated to orbit the earth twice, once at an altitude of about 500 miles. then it will get a lift from a second-stage booster to 3,600 miles, high enough for the capsule to be exposed to a big december of space radiation and to create enough speed on re-entry to generate 80% of the heat it would encounter on a return from the moon. >> this is really our first step in our journey to mars. >> nasa envisions a human presence on mars in the mid-20 30s. charlie bowden is the agency's administrator. >> i use the term pioneer instead of explorer. exploring implies we'll go out and come back like lewis and clark. we're intending to pioneer mars, which means we'll put people on that planet to be there permanently. >> but nasa is a long way from that. >> if you ask us to go to mars today, we don't think we're in the right risk posture. >> the man in charge of human space exploration at nasa says the current plan calls for an unpeopled orion can sell to orbit the moon in 2018 and in 2021 or 2022 carry two astronauts on a short visit to small asteroid or a piece of a larger one that would be robotically grabbed and nudged into lunar orbit. there are no firm plans for what happened after that. engineers are dealing with some big technical hurdles, how to protect the crew from radiation, how to land something much bigger than a compact car-sized rover on mars, and how humans can safely operate independent from support from earth. >> the basic strategy that we're trying to do as we do a series of test, each one of more and more complexity and more and more challenge, that we continue to add until eventually we build the capabilities and the skills and the operational techniques and the risk management philosophy that allows us to go to mars. >> there are many seasoned hands in the space world who wonder if the agency's big plans to visit the red planet may become lost in space. tom young is among them. >> i think a fundamental problem we have with today's mars strategy is that it's not consistent with the available budget, and we don't have the funds to really make it an executable plan. >> young is a veteran aerospace executive who knows a little something about getting to the red planet. >> i'm assuming we must be sitting right on the x. so that's a smooth area. so everybody just did fabulous. couldn't be more pleased. thank you. >> he was nasa's program manager for the viking missions in the mid-'70s, which accomplished the first and second successful landings on mars. >> we it's very to augustment the resources to make the goal achievable or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources because if we don't, what we're fundamentally going to do is we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ignition and liftoff. >> in 2010, president obama canceled the bush administration's constellation program. which envisioned a rush to the moon. >> i understand that some believe we should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first. as previously planned. but i just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. >> obama wanted nasa to use the money constellation would have spent on a can sell and rocket made of apollo and shuttle legacy hardware to push the development of new propulsion technology and seed the private sector to bill new vehicles, but the cancellation of constellation ruffled the feathers of some heavyweights in the aerospace world and on capitol hill. senator richard shelby of alabama represents nasa's primary rocket-building facility, huntsville's marshall space flight center. he helped force the administration to spend less on new technology and instead design a rocket called the space launch system or sls. led by shelby's constituents in huntsville, sls is being built with beefed-up, shuttle-style boosters and shuttle main engines. >> these were very successful engines. we do know what we have. that's why we learn. this is tomorrow's technology. we'll learn from this. there will be other things that will come out of it that will be positive. but you just don't reinvent the wheel. you build on the wheel. these were good wheels. >> but as it is, sls does not have enough thurst to go any further than lunar orbit. that's what prompted the idea of bringing an asteroid to the moon. otherwise sls is a rocket without a destination. for a mission to mars, it will need a redesign with more powerful boosters and a new second-stage motor. former nasa deputy administrator lori garver was one of the leading proponents of the original obama space plan. >> if you were driving to mars, there were a number of things you'd be doing that we're not doing now that are the difficult things. you wouldn't be building a spacecraft now based on technology from 40 years ago, engines from 40 years ago to go somewhere in 20 years and spending $3 to $4 billion a year on that. >> garver believes nasa's current path to mars is a hybrid of ideas borne not of engineering elegance but political compromise. >> the purpose has become political and jobs, and i think we're... we've lost the sort of unifying view that exploration is something that we do as a species. we should have that broader purpose rather than just a political needs of a few members of congress with jobs in their district. >> senator shelby rejects the notion that space exploration has become a jobs program. >> well, i'd be against a jobs program. i'm for the cutting-edge of space. jobs come with it if you've got a good system that you're building. i believe this will be a good system and be good for the space program. otherwise i wouldn't support it. >> but will a half a loaf with a side of bacon ever get nasa to mars? is there enough money in nasa's budget to pay for the compromise and still reach the stars? john holdren is president obama's science adviser. >> i don't think the current approach of kicking the can down the road may amount to within reasonable limits getting down the steps we need to achieve in order ultimately to get to mars. eventually, yes, between now and the 2030s, we would meade to ramp up the budget. at the current budget, we will not get to mars, that's correct. >> during orion's first flight, nasa engineers aim to test the riskiest events, things that have to work right first time when astronauts are on board. but the biggest risk to the overarching goal may have more to do with political science than rocket science. miles o'brien, the pbs "newshour," washington. >> ifill: online we have a slideshow of orion's journey to the launchpad. and you can watch the launch live tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern on our homepage. >> ifill: we'll be back with a conversation with secretary of the interior sally jewell on reforming the education system for native americans. but first, it's pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air. >> woodruff: now the substantial problems that native americans in the u.s. face, particularly with education. that was the focus of a new report issued today and a meeting president obama had with native americans in washington. the president announced a series of initiatives to prepare young american indians for college and the workforce. they include a push to strengthen tribal control of education on reservations. the federal bureau of indian education is responsible for educating nearly 50,000 students in 23 states. the high school graduation rate is for native americans the lowest of any ethnic or racial group. the bureau is part of the department of the interior and interior secretary sally jewell joins me now. welcome to the news hour. >> thank you very much. >> we know the problems in the native american community. they're deeply entrenchedment they go back a long time to the very beginning of this country. what are just a couple of the ways the administration thinks it can make a real difference. >> well, the report that the white house just issued on native american use does a very good job of chronicling the challenges. they are deep seeded. they've been along for not just decades but literally hundreds of years. policies that tried to kill the indian to save the man. policies of assimilation, of squishing cultures and in so doing, they really diminish the confidence and the pride of native americans. what the president has done and he's charged his cabinet with this, and this was really powerfully breakthrough home to him in a visit with young people at the standing rock sioux tribe , is he does not want the stand by and watch this happen anymore. he's charged his administration very directly with being part of the solution, with charting a different course. that's what we're doing. >> the challenges we know because of all the attention on it today facing young native americans, particularly tough. i was reading more than one-third of them live in poverty. the statistics we just reported them are really discouraging. first of all, how did it get so bad. how can the administration make a real difference this time? >> will, the short answer is there have been reports that have gone back for decades. there's a major report under president kennedy's leadership on indian education that showed many of the same problems. and the distance today and the difference that we believe strongly in is around turning over control of these schools to tribal leadership. in giving them the tools they need to figure out where the bright spots, what's going well and why, so that we can help them bring those lessons to their schools, and yet they have accountability. you mentioned 23 states. that's 23 different sets of rules, very, very difficult for us to administer, and a lack of accountability because we're a federal bureaucracy. tribes will hold people accountable for doing the right job for their kids and that's the basic premise here. >> what makes you think that's going to work. >> we have some great bright spots out there. the mississippi band of choctaw indians has done a wonderful job of tribal control of schools. they hire a director, reports to the tribal council and the tribal chief, and they have didn't a great job. i visited their reservation and i saw it in action. i have been to many schools where the kids are wonderful. the kids are curious. the kids don't know how the deck is stacked against them. and we need to nurture that. i see individual schools working hard to do that. but i see them doing it in crumbling facilities, and i see them doing that without the kind of support that they need from us. >> we know some native american leaders, they point to these years of promise as you mention, the kennedy administration, about children getting a better education. they're saying many of those promises have been broken. i was reading today a minnesota newspaper editorial written on behalf of an indian reservation. they say the obama administration has "ignored the fundamental need for safe, functional schools." >> so the in minnesota they're in the middle of a series, which i would say is very helpful, because it's shining a spotlight on the challenges we have of the schools that i administer through the pure reof indian education, it's about 183 of them, one-third of them are considered in poor condition. one of them was a school i visited up there. none of us would want our kids to go to school there. it's not safe. it wasn't designed for that purpose. it's too cold. it's too hot. it has no labs for science. it's not serve children well. so we need support in our budget to be able to do that. we need to get creative, which i'm getting in figuring out what other sources of support might there be. in the private sector, in the philanthropic community, in states but also stepping up to our obligations as a nation and putting money in the budget to take care of these schools, which we're obligated to do but we're not funded to do. >> we know it's a tough set of problems. i also want to ask you about another part of your portfolio. another tough set of issues. that's energy. we know both the oil and gas industry and environmentalists separately are very anxiously awaiting final rules on hydraulic fracturing, fracking on public land. the environmentalists say they're worried this is going to destroy the environment, do terrible damage. the industry is saying, no, if you don't do fracking, you're going to cost all these jobs. how do you strike the right balance here? >> well, first i'm an environmentalist, and i'm also a petroleum engineer. i started my career working for mobile oil. i have personally tracked wells before. so fracking can be didn't safely and responsibly, but it needs to be regulated in a modern way because fracking has gone a long way since i was in the industry. so we're modernizing our regulation, and there are three key things that we're looking at in regulations. the most important thing is integrity. if you've got a good well integrity and the the frack fluid is going where it's supposed to gosh, it can unlock resources with a small imprint on the land. that wasn't true. you drilled individual wells with soda straws. now cro you can drill directionally and frack horizonly. but you need to know what's being put down the hole, you need to know what's happening with the fluids as they come back. that's what our regulations are addressing. >> woodruff: those are coming out in the next few weeks we understand. >> we haven't set a dale jarrett, but we have taken comments twice, over a million comments. we're synthesizing those. we hope to have them released in the relatively near future. >> woodruff: when they do come out, we hope you come back and we can talk to you. >> that would be great. >> woodruff: secretary of the interior, sally jewell, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. a grand jury in new york declined to indict a white policeman in the choking death of a black man, eric garner. mayor bill de blasio appealed for calm, and a justice department official said there will be a separate, federal investigation. japanese air bag maker takata refused to make a recall of defective products nationwide in the u.s. and there was word this evening that a u.s. health care worker who may have been exposed to ebola in west africa is being transferred to emory university hospital in atlanta. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, british scientists have solved a 500- year-old cold case. over the centuries, the location of king richard the third's grave was lost. in 2012, human bones were unearthed from under a parking lot in england, and now, using d.n.a., researchers have concluded that they are those of the infamous monarch. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at a long awaited report by the department of defense on sexual assault in the military. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening, for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. wall street and washington. the two intersected today when some of the biggest names in business from walmart to exxon mobile asked the president about some of the biggest issues facing their companies and the economy. >> and there's one matter that could keep business leaders up at night in the new year. we'll tell you what it is. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, december 3rd. >> good evening, everyone. i'm sue herera.

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