P -Wed A 4982h M a Di
egan ready t
extend benefits
for unemployed
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Reagan
administration in an about-face, is
negotiating with congressional
Republicans on compromise legislation
that would provide extended unem-
ployment benefits for jobless
Americans, administration officials
saidyesterday.
Even as budget director David
Stockman was telling Congress that the
administration remained opposed to
extending benefits, deputy White House
Press Secretary Larry Speakes con-
firned that the administration was now
prepared to support an extension if the
legislation is in a form acceptable to.
President Reagan.
DESPITE THE highest national,
unemployment rate since World War II,
the administration had been taking.
a hard line against congressional
proposals to provide an additional 13
weeks of jobless insurance, which
would cost up to $1 billion.
One administration official, asking
that his name not be used, said that
negotiations on a low-cost extention
plan were underway with Sen. Finance
Committee Chairman Bob Dole, (R-
Kan.), and Rep. Barber Conable, (R-
N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the
tax writing committee in the House.
In Hartford, Conn., where Reagan
was traveling yesterday, Speakes said
the administration has made no com-
mitment to support an extension of
benefits, but is working with
congressional committees.
ANOTHER official said one proposal
under active consideration involves
spending $700 million for a maximum
extension of 10 weeks. Under this plan,
up to 500,000 workers would be eligible
for as many as 49 weeks of unem-
ployment benefits.
Under current law, the federal
government provides funds for states to
distribute up to 39 weeks of benefits - 26
weeks of regular unemployment in-
surance and up to 13 weeks of extended
benefits in states with high unem-
ployment rates.
Currently, nearly 4.6 million people
are receiving jobless benefits, in-
cluding 508,500 on extended benefits.
Altogether, 1.4 million people were
listed as unemployed in June for an
unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.
IN MAY, 33 states were paying ex-
tended benefits, but because of
tightened rules Reagan won from
Congress last year, the number of
states able to offer extended benefits is
falling even though their jobless rates
remain very high. Currently, only 24
states are providing extended benefits,
and the number could drop to 15 by late
September.
In testimony before the Senate
Budget Committee yesterday, Stock-
man said the administration may want
to seek changes that would prevent
states from losing the 13-week exten-
sion now allowed under the law.
However, when asked about an ad-
ditional 13-week extension that would
provide a total of 52 weeks of benefits,
he said, "Our position at the present
time is it would not be a wise idea."
Last week, John Cogan, an assistant
labor secretary, told the Senate Finan-
ce Committee that "extending benefits
is inequitable, ill-timed and costly."
"We believe that 39 weeks of unem-
ployment benefits is the maximum that
should be provided based on the
worker's previous job," Cogan said.
In Brief
Compiled from Associated Press and
United Press International reports
Company asks FAA to ground
planes in 'wind shear' conditions
WASHINGTON- The manufacturer of the device that warned of hazar-
dous wind shifts before the crash of a Boeing 727 near New Orleans is urging
the government to ground planes under such conditions.
Federal investigators have not pinpointed why Pan American World Air-
ways flight 759 crashed, killing 154 people, after taking off in a driving rain-
storm July 9. But they have acknowledged two warnings of severe "wind
shear" in the area were given minutes before takeoff.
The warnings, sounded in the airport control tower, came from a device
manufactured by Sangamo-Weston Systems Inc., which has installed
similar equipment in 58 U.S. airports.
In a letter to FAA Administrator J. Lynn Helms after the New Orleans
crash, company officials complained about "a fearful lack of understan-
ding" of the severity of the wind shear problem "and of the. . . methods of
measuring and warning against it."
"We suggest .., that no aircraft lands or takes off within 15 minutes of an
alert," K.S. Morgan urged in the July 29 letter.
NAACP to boycott film studio
HOLLYWOOD- The NAACP, complaining that the movie and TV in-
dustries have turned deaf ears to pleas for increased minority hiring, said
yesterday it will select a major film studio as a target for possible boycotts
and extend its equal employment campaign to the networks.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to
select the target studio within the next week and present a list of hiring
demands to be met within a certain time period before resorting to boycotts
or other means of pressure, said NAACP Executive Director Benjamin
Hooks.
"During the past eight months we have been meeting and negotiating with
the movie industry with varying results," Hooks said in a prepared
statement at a Los Angeles Press Club news conference. "We found that the
problems are serious and deeply entrenched. Now that we have the structure
set up for dealing with racial problems within the movie industry, and
among TV networks, we will act."
He said that if the target studio remains "non-responsive, we may call on
our chapters ... to use whatever non-violent means" necessary to achieve
the goals of the NAACP's Fair Share Program.
Such tactics would include informational picketing at theaters and
picketing at film production facilities, Hooks said.
Double-digit interest rates
will persist, economists predict
WASHINGTON- Stubbornly high interest rates are at last declining
because, say the experts, the economy has grown so weak. But how long and
how far the rates will drop remains an enigma.
Those willing to hazard a guess suggest that further, modest declines in
the cost of borrowing are likely this year. But just about every forecaster
believes Americans will have to endure interest rates in double digits for
years to come.
"Any economist who tries to tell you with certainty what interest rates will
do in the short term is a fool," says Barry Bosworth, a leading economist in
the Carter administration and now a researcher for the Brookings In-
stitution. "For the long run, though, one can be comfortable in saying the
basic story is that interest rates are going to stay high."
Bosworth and numerous other economists contend high interest rates will
be a fact of life so long as the Reagan administration pursues record budget
deficits and the Federal Reserve Board embraces a tight-money policy to
keep inflation down. Huge government borrowing needs, plus tight credit,
equals high rates for everyope else who needs money, Bosworth said.
Inland oil spill cleanup begins
BYRON, Wyo. - Siphon trucks sucked up some of the 250,000 gallons of oil
pouring through a Wyoming wildlife preserve yesterday in what officials
said was one of the nation's largest inland oil spills.
A break late Sunday or early Monday ina 12-inch Platte Pipe Line Co. line
north of Byron released the oil into an irrigation ditch on private property,
which drained into Whistle Creek, the Shoshone River and ended up a quar-
ter-mile into Yellowtail Rservoir according to a spokesman for the state
Department of Environmental Quality.
Department spokesman Jake Strohman assessed the spill at 6,000 barrels
- 252,000 gallons - although Bill Ryder of Mrathon Oil Co., Platte's parent
company said neither the volume of the spill nor the reason for the break
could be determined immediately.
Officials said no drinking water supplies had been threatened yet, and Bob
Gurney of the Wyoming Fish and Game Department, said there had been no
reports of damage to wildlife.
:However, Gurney said inspectors had not finished their walking tour of
the spill area in north-central Wyoming, including the Shoshone's route
through the 19,000-acre Yellowtail Habitat Unit, a mixture of state and
federal lands preserved for wildlife.
U.N. prepares to deploy
truce observers in Beirut
(Continued trorPage1)
dments in the heaviest shelling since
the latest cease-fire went into effect.
Huge fires raged out of control in
.several areas of west Beirut.
LEBANESE military observers in
east Beirut said much of the Israeli
shelling was by heavy guns near the
Beirut airport that is now under Israeli
control. The firing continued into the
earfy morning hours.
In Washington, state department
deputy chairman Alan Romberg said a
genuine cease-fire is "essential to our
effort" to produce a peace settlement.
Romberg said that "the United States
does not want an attack against
Beirut."
"At the same time, regardless of
what we want, while we can influence
events, we cannot, ultimately, control
them." Romberg said. "W are doing
everything we can do" to stop the
violence in Lebanon, Romberg said.
HE SAID food, water and electricity
remain cut off in west Beirut and that
the situation there is "grim." He
renewed President Reagan's call for a
rs ttratioiiof essential services.
Romberg would not predict whether
the United States would end the
diplomatic peace mission of U.S. envoy
Philip Habib if Israel does enter west
Beirut to crush the Palestine Liberation
Organization guerrillas in that
predominantly Moslem section of the
Lebanese capital.
Romberg said the latest of a series of
cease-fires "is holding, although some
sporadic artillery firing continues."
"WE CONTINUE to urge a complete
cessation of firing by all parties," he
said.
In response to questions, Romberg
said Israeli officials are ignoring
Reagan's pleas for a cease-fire and the
restoratlionof services in west Beirut.
"That doesn't mean the problems are
being resolved," he said.
"They are very difficult issues and
we are working on it."
On Monday, Reagan rejected as a
"propagandistic exercise" the release
in Moscow of a letter to him from Soviet
President Leonid Brezhnev which
charged tt hat -United, tates,,ha4
failed to restrain Israel in Lebanon.