can help you make the mo of toda mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> when it comes to wireless, consumer cellular gives its customers the choi. our no-contact plans give you as much or as little talk, text and data as you want. and our u.s.-based ctomer service team is on-hand to help. to learn more, go to www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been prided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private rporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your s station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari senivasan >> sreenivasan: good evening, an the legal team representing president donald trump began their defense in the senate's impeachment trial this morning. for two hours, four latook turns making the case that there is no basis for removing the president om office on the two charges facing him-- abuse of power and obstruction of congress. white house counsel pat cippolone led off, repeating the admistration's claim that mr. trump "did absolutely nothing wrong" in his calls with ukrainian present volodymyr zelens and that democrats left out facts when they made their case over the past three days. >> today, we are going to confront them on the merits of their argument. now,hey have the burden of proof, and they have not come close to meeting it. >> sreenivasan: he repeatedly charged that democrats are using impeachment to undo the result of the 2016 election and prevent the president's reelection thi november. >> they're asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country, on your own initiative, take that decision away from the american people. and i don't think they spent one minute of their 24 hours talking to you about the conseences of at for our country. >> sreenivasan: the legal team f alused directly on the house impeachment case manager, democratic representative adam epschiff. theyyed schiff's reading t what he admitted was an embellished acco the transcript of the president's july 25, 2019 phone call with ukrainian president zeky. >> "i want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? lots of it." >> that's fake. that's not the real call >> sreenivasan: the president's lawyers used most of today to o preview their challengese democrats' case coming next week. using texts, emails, and video clips, they said the evidence shows the ukranians never knew w military a being withheld, so it could not have beeused as a threat to get ukraine's leaders to announce an investigation of former vice president joe biden and his son hunter. >> there can't be a threat without the person knowing he's being threatened. there can't be a quid pro quo without the quo. >> sreenivasan: the impeachment trial will resume monday afternoon at 1:00, when the administration lawyers will make their full case defending the president. joining me here in the studio tc s today's impeachment trial are jami floyd, host and legal editor at wnyc, new york public radio, and ryan goodman, co-editor-in-chief of security. jami, let me start with you, the defense.ar what did we l today? this was supposed to be a trailer? >> yes, i like thaphrase. you go to the movies and you get a little sneak peek, and that's pretty much wh they did. they outlined wat will be their rebuttal to the argument to remove president trump from office. they laid out why they say the president did not violate the law. he was acting in his presidential capacity, theyy sa, and anything that he did was not an i oeachabense. and they addressed, in prequel fashion, both articles of impeachment. idand then they , you know, we'll sit down for today and come back at you monday with a more detailed rebuttal. >> sreenivasan: so, in this, ryan, one of the central ntentions that they have is that what you've been hearing for three days over 24 hours is an incomplete set of facts. what are they talking about? what ithe new information that the democrats have been hing? >>o, that wawhat they tried to do. they tried to suggest here we are presenting to you new information you haven't heard in the past three days. but a large part of it was addressed by the democrats and use managers. and adam schiff, even last night, went through thissa prebuttang, "here's what they're going to say tomorrow and here's what our response is to that." they did fill it out to some degree with additional video of so they tried to problemmaitize. when was the first time the ukrainians knew the aid was suspended? it was interese ng. at the sme they presented all the videos of u.s. officials saying the first time i knew they do was late august, then they leave out the video of one of the ocials, the defense department official, miss ually, theying, act first time we knew in my department, was july 25, which is the very day of the call with esident zelensky. >> sreenivasan: looking back over the past three days, did the house make its case well enough, considering we're really looking at four, maybe five publican senators that might be convincible? >> there are two stages gng forward. the next phase, once republicans finish with their 24-hour period of argumentation, if they take that full period, is whether or not those fr or fiveue really only need four-- republicans will agr to vote with democrats to call in witnesses and bring in documentary evidence. that may happen. i'm thinking it's less likely than i thought it was three days ago, based on what i'm hearing c fritol hill and what i'm seeing in the resnses to some of the arguments from the democrats. but that may happen. whether not you can actually get the number of votes youd nee to convict, that's a cmpletely that's the end game. and highl ununlikely, i think. all analysts agree and i think all democrats see that writing onhe wall. >> i think one of the most interesting dynamics we've seen in the past ew hours, few days, when the president at team presents their fact and says, "you've been told other thingz. here's some contradictory information." it forcethe qustion, if i'm a nator and i can't really resolve it, what must i do but have a true trial wherees witns can come forward. whons t real answer to this? john bolton. who knows the real answer to this? mick mulvanss. and is going to come to us in a way i don't think many of us amod unter today's hearing. >> and what republicans are saying in part, or will be saying, and began to say today is well, why didn't you pursue that in the house? you knower, you're so coed about the political question, the political implications and the timing of the election, it was on you to pursue that in the house. but it is somewhat disingenuou when the white houseas w stonewalling, and even in a real trial-- and, of course, we know this is not a courtroom in the truest sense of the word. this is court of impeachment. but you can always call witnesses that weren't called in the grand jurys etting. so tdea that we can't hear from witnesses is a bit of a fiction, and i think the republicans know it. >> sreenivasan: at the core of this, this also seemso be a case that says what is the power of the presidency? are these coequal branches of vernment? what is the extent of executive privilege that this individual can say, "i'm using this power"? >> so it is a set of toug questions in that sense. and i do think one of the issues that the democrats laid ow well is the answer to that question will be with us for decades or centuries, in the sense that we've been looking, when we think about th question, "what happened with the johnson impeachment hundreds of years ago? what happened with the nixon impeachment decades ago?" so what the answer tohat estion here will define the relationship between the two branches for a long period of time. soan it be the c that a esident can say, "you know, you want any information from us? we're t participating whatsoever. we're not going to tell you specifically what is executive ivilege, just no participation." that'shy this october 8 ler from the white house counsel to the house was declared by thes tin its headline, "white house declares war on the impeachment inquiry." because it really was nothill. yoet no documents, no officials, no matter how low or how high they are in the chain. and that's something extraordinary that i think the democrats te trying to sayo the senators this is about us, too,sa an in>>stitution. nd the impeachment power is where adam schiff landed at the end of his argu, knowing that that would be the last thing he would say to the senators. what is the point of the impeachment power in constitution if it is not this moment in which we stand right so that is what is moment is all about. and that is why it iso storically important for this to be resolved in a way that understands the capacity of all three branches of government toh k one another. >> sreenivasan: all right, jami floyd, legal editor at wnyc, and j. david goodman coeditor of the "just security" blog. >> thank you.h. >> sreenivasan: china's presidt xi jinping warned of an "accelerating spread" of toe coronaviruy, and called the situation "grave." 42 people have died, and the virus has infected more than 1,200 others since the outbrea began in the ctral chinese city of wuhan. at least 48 million people in china are now in a lockdown that includes a tral ban covering 15 cities. festivals and events markingda s lunar new year are canceled. hong kong ordered hools closed through mid-febrry. ten other countries including the united states have confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which causes symptoms ranging from ld and flu to pneumonia, which can be fatal. >> so far, those cases that have reached other countries are linked back to wuhan. so, in terms of person-to-rson transmission outside of china, we have not seen that yet. and there are-- i always like to put this in rspective, there yare viruses in this coun right now, such as the flu, that pose a much, much bigger threatn >> sasan: the death toll from the strong earthquake that struck eastern turkey yesterdays is now at 22. more than 1,000 people were injured,nd hundreds of structures were damaged during the quake, whichgnegistered a ude between 6.5 and 6.8. emergency workers continued to search for survivors itheru le of collapd buildings, and president erdogan inspected the areas affected in eastern ey. the initial quake was followed byore than 200 aftershocks, with magnitudes as high as 5.4. >> sreenivasan: for more on the senate impeachment trial and the latest on what u.s. health officials are saying about the coronavirus, visit cebook.com/newshour >> sreenivasan: the u.s. currently has no national plan to combat climate change.ho several statesver, have clean energy mandates offering technology-specific grants and tax credits to help renewable energy producers compete with fossil fuels. and it appears to be working. since the year 2000, the amount of renewable energy onrid from sources like solar and wind has more than doubled. but after this year, a tax credit supporting wind energy for nearly 30 years is phasing out. newshour weekend special correspondent karla murthy reports on how the industry is coping with the end of theiv ince >> reporter: off a rural county road in west texas, severalla dozen locaowners and guests are gathered around thre- ot-long wind blades. using special acid-free markersi attendee the fiberglass and balsa wood blades, monially kicking off wha will be one of the largest wind farms in texas: aviand. hollis farris is one onethose landowrs. he owns a 5,000-acre ranch used for raising cattle and game hunts. >> well, i've always enjoyed the wind. where my house sits, i get wind coming from this direction and that direction. i didn't think it'd ever makme any money. ( laughs ) 19>> reporter: eight of th turbines that make up the aviator wind project will be on farris' property. together, landowners negotiated how much they would earn when the turbines spin. apex clean energy, whi developing the project, estimates that aviator will generate $172 million for the 80 participating landowners. farris didn't want to disclose exactly how much he expectto make, but, wh his eight turbines, he could easily earn t,x figures a year. >> the way i seeou have a bad year, this gives you an income to keep the ranch running. >> reporter: when aviator wind is completed, it will produce 525 megawatts of energy each year, enough to power about 185,000 homes.rk oodwin is the c.e.o. of apex clean energy. >> an older project from ten years ago would have two or three times as many turbines, and the cost of the electricity has come down significantly in the last ten years. >> reporter: so, waytiore prod? >> it is way more productive, d the-- the cost has essentially stayed the same or gone down. >> reporter: the turbine baldes being ind at aviator are nearly 60% bger than ones on rbines installed less than a decade ago. this helps each tuine generate more electricity, in turn driving down the price of the power itaptures. wind power in the united states has also gotten a big boost from a deral subsidy called the production tax credit, or p.t.c. first passed in 1992 as part of the bipartisan energy policy act, it's one ofeveral incentives to support renewable energy technologies in the united states. the p.t.c. provides a subsy to wind energy producers for each kilowatt of energy generated for the first decade of a projt's operation. while the credit was originally scheduled to end in 1999, it has been extended by congress times since then. >> the idea with the p.t.c. was to say, "oy, we've got these technologies that don't seem to be developing as fast as we want them to, so let's put an incentive there." >> reporter: melissa lott is a senior research scholar at columbia university's center onb energy policy. >> so, if you look back at 1992 and you look at onshore wind, we had somewhgae around 1.5 tts of wind. and if you look at it today, st forward, we're talking at having over 100 gigawatts of wind power id the country. 's producing 7% of the electricity in this country at th20 time. since 11, we've seen thef amountnd on the system double. that's incredible growth. >> reporter: at the same time, the p.t.c. has also push down the wholesale cost of wind energy by about de% in the last de. >> onshore wind looks like it's competitive inmb significant of states in the u.s. so, if the idea behind the p.t.c. was to say, "okay, we're going to help a technology that's not quite there," well, in the case of wind, maybe it is there now. >> reporter: and that's exactly what lawmakers have determined. after nearly 30 years, congress is phasing out t p.t.c. wind projects need to be operional by the end of 2020 to receive the full credit, with the incentive completely disappearing by 2024. that means projects like aviator are racing to be up and spinning this year. ( rn honks ) a turbine can be built in as fast as two and a half weeks; and to build nearly 200 of them by the end of this year requires carefully choreographing the location of equipment like cranes, and a small army of construction workers. whe some teams are preparing sites, others are receiving and staging the massive pieces of infrastructure that make up each turbin ( horn honks ) tting the sections of each one here is also a logistical feat. the blades are shipped on e expandablerailers and long that access roads built for the project can't be too steep or the blades could scrape the ground. beyond the scale and increased productivity of wind projectsli aviator, renewable energy has also gotten boost from bigat corpns hoping to address climate change by offsetting their greenhou gas emissions. among those signing the blades at aviator was a team from faceok, which has pledged to buy about 40% of the energy produced here. urvi parekh is the head of renewable energy for facebook. >> we've set a goal that i 2020, facebook-- 100% of its operations will be supported by rewable energy projects. and our interest is in making sure those renewable energy projects are in the same region or electrical grid where our consumption happens. >> reporter: the power febook is buying from aviator will offset energy used by its data centers in nearby fort worth and new mexico. in the last seven years, facebook has already bought enough renewable energy to power about 75% of its operations. does it make economic sense to be purchasing power here from the aviator wind project? you know, we look at the amount of money it takes to run an entire data center, and the renewable energy piece is-- is all-- is built in for us. and it's not that many yearsgo renewable energy we that expensive to use. and it's been impressive withno tegical advances to see the costs of renewable energy coming down. >> reporter: aviator's other major customer is mcdonald's, which is also contracting to buy about 40% the annual energy production here. it's the fast food giant's first large reneblenergy purchase. so, you have some big companies that have agreed to buy a y significant chunk of eneom your project. i mean, how imrtant are those nds of agreements to creating a market for big winprojects? >> it'critical, and it is a terrific evolution of our industry where there are a lot of corporations like mcdonald's and facebook who understand that one of the best ways for them to mitigate tir carbon emissions is for them to procure electricity from wind farms like aviator. >> reporter: goodwin says these corporate commitments to combat climate change in turn end up supporting the rural communities where projects like aviator are based. so, this whole facility is brand new? >> all of it is brand new. >> reporter: aaron hood is the superintendent of the robert lee independent school district,is which ocated in the sameia county as avtor wind. hood says that with just about 285 students, the district historically relied on taxes b paoil and gas operations. more recently, though, it's been >> we're proud of it.ects. schools our size usually don't get opportunities to do this.te >> rep yeah. >> and so, we-- we were very fortunate. >> reporter: aviatore third wind development to benefit the district, and it's expected to provide about $34 rllion in tax revenue ove the next 25 years. play such an important part in running your district? >> i did not. i don't think anybody here ever, ever even thought about that. and so, i think it's been, youkn , a-- a blessing to us. i think it gives us the school, the facility that we have, and it's good for our kids. >> reporter: but with the p.t.c. phasing out, analysts expect there to be a drop-offn wind installations over the next several years. and although producers have known about this phase-out since 2015, some in the wind industry are worried. >> it could be problematic if there no carbon policy put in place.or >> rr: apex c.e.o. mark goodwin says there was a belief that a larger plan to tackle climate change was coming. >> the wind industry voluntarily agreed to a phase-out, but that was in scenario where, over that phase-out, we expected there to be a carbon policy that ramped up. wind and solar generate no greenhouse gases. ssil fuel generators, theyll e for free. and there should be a price on that, and that will help balance out where we go in the future. >> reporter: there have been several proposals to curb greenhouse gas emissions datings back decincluding carbon taxes, cap and trade systems, and, more recently, a green new deal that would mandate renewable energy on the grid. asbut the u.s. is far fromng any kind of national carbon policy to prevent climate change. in fact, in 2017, the trump administration announced it was oupulling the united stateof the paris climate accords. >> and this is in absence of a e policy. >> reporter: energy researcher melissa lott says relying on inceives for specific technologies, like the production tax credit for wind, is not the most efficient way to redu greenhouse gas emission >> the best thing we can do ispo to have cy that stays technology-neutral and says our goal is zero carbon. given that goal, here's a structure in which for you all to operate, and then let the markets decide what happens after that. >> reporter: so, but without that federal policy, should we continue having these tax credits? >> yeah, so there are arguments both ways, but i think if we don't have a national policy that supports climate holistical, we should be doing whatever we can. and if the means before us is a production tax credit, then ne. >> reporter: as the wind industry enters the last year of the full p.t.c., 2020 is projected toe a record year th developers expected to install nearly 40% more wind energy than last year. >> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. th sreenivasan: today mark chinese lunar new year and the beginning of the year of the rat. celebrations will feature the traditional lion dance, ushering in good luck and fortune. in new york, one young dancer is showing how the tradit being reinvented. >>heion dance started around tang dynasty, most people would point it, which is man- like, several hundred years ago. and, for the mt part, lion daing is an art that's reserved for martial artists. and, more often than not, only the best students in a martial arts school could perform under the head. of course, now, it's more of a cultural and performance art that's more focused on blessings, going to big events. and, most famously, we're there rades. we're there for chinese new year. i started at 12 years old, and, at 12 years old, it was a very tough, uphill battle for me. first of all, i was very introverted. the person that i was at 12 years old would have been a very different person if i'd never picked up lion dance at all. even now, there's not that many women that are visible that play in the head, in the tail. however, in the freemasons, we do try to change that. you do try to recruit women. i had all of these thoughts, i had all of his doubts lingering on me, and i had to face them head on. like, any girl can do this. like, if-- if a 15-year-old boy can do this, a girl should be able to do this. case. shoun't be a spectacular i shouldn't be a-- the exception. there's segments in so where there's not a lot of girl presence, but i would like to change that. there is some sense of power when i get in e head because i get to express myself. nobody can see me, so i can act how i want. i can play how i want. if i want to do kicks, il do that. and if i want to mess around with other people, i'll do that. there's a-there's a sort of freedom. >> sreenivasan: you can find more news and reactions to the opening of the president's defense in the impeachment f trial, and ol conversation with dr. edith bracho-sanchez about the coronavirus, on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. suand edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try tve in the moment, to not miss what's right i u front of at mutual of america, we rolieve taking care of tom can help you make the most of today. mutual of amica financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs. ♪ narrator: it is a city built on sand -- on fog-swept dunes and dry cliffs of chert rising from a semi-arid desert perched along a salt sea -- a city without water. that there is fresh water in san francisco, abundant, pristine water, is something of a miracle -- draine from a melting glacier 0 miles away, through a system nobody thought could be built or should be built, a syem some died fighting and some still want to disntle. today, millions of people depend on it, and more every day.