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THE NEW MEXICAN Thursday, April 3, 2014
Shooting: Suspect was Iraq War veteran Continued from Page A-1 been under examination to determine whether he had post-traumatic stress disorder. “We are digging deep into his background,” Milley said. Milley said the soldier opened fire with a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol that was purchased recently but was not authorized to be brought on the post. He was eventually confronted by a female military police officer. He put his hands up but then pulled out a gun from under his jacket. “She engaged,” Milley said, and then the soldier put the gun to his head and shot himself. The shooting was the third major gun attack at a U.S. military installation in five years, leaving the nation grappling with the prospect of yet more flag-draped funerals for troops killed on the homefront. A government contractor went on a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard in September, leaving 12 people dead. In 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire on a group of soldiers at Fort Hood preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30. Doctors at the Scott & White hospital in Temple, Texas, said Wednesday that they have treated eight of the wounded and that one more was on the way. Three of the patients were in critical condition in the ICU, and five were in serious condition. Seven of them were male, and one was female. Their injuries ranged from mild to life-threatening, a majority of them caused by single-gunshot wounds to the neck, chest and abdomen. President Barack Obama said he was “heartbroken that something like this might have happened again.” Speaking in Chicago, he pledged “to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.” Although bases such as Fort Hood contain large storehouses of armaments, and many of their inhabitants have spent years at war, military posts are usually among the most idyllic communities in
Lucy Hamlin and her husband, Spc. Timothy Hamlin, wait for permission Wednesday to reenter Fort Hood, where they live, following a shooting on the base. TAMIR KALIFA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
the country, a throwback to the 1950s, with manicured lawns, drivers who conscientiously abide by the speed limit and parents unafraid to allow their children to frolic out of sight. In the wake of the Navy Yard shooting, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered a series of security changes at military installations, including more rigorous screening of personnel and the creation of an analysis center to examine “insider threats.” “When we have these kinds of tragedies on our bases, something’s not working,” he said Wednesday evening during a visit to Hawaii. “We will continue to address the issue. Anytime you lose your people to these kinds of tragedies, it’s an issue, it’s a problem.” Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that many questions remained about the shooting but that a principal initial focus was to support the victims and their families. “This is a community that has faced and overcome crises with resilience and strength,” he said in a statement. Soldiers based at Fort Hood were called upon, often repeatedly, to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. Those combat tours have exacted a profound physical and emotional toll on many
troops. Others have rebounded quickly and are continuing their military careers or are transitioning into the civilian world. Dozens of ambulances and law enforcement vehicles converged on the scene after the shooting. Several of the wounded were transported to area hospitals. The post was placed on lockdown for much of the afternoon, with loudspeakers across the facility urging people to shelter in place. The order was lifted in the early evening, once law enforcement authorities had determined that a sole gunman was responsible for the shooting. With the exception of military police officers, soldiers at Fort Hood and all other U.S. military installations are not armed or permitted to carry privately owned firearms. The restrictions on personal weapons were expanded in the wake of the 2009 massacre and an epidemic of suicides at Fort Hood, which is the largest active-duty armored post in the country. Current policy requires soldiers to register their personal weapons with their commanders and to keep those weapons in a secured room. Hasan was convicted of multiple counts of murder last year and sentenced to death. He is on death row at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Waste: First shipment arrives in Texas Continued from Page A-1 Andrews, Texas, operated by Waste Control Specialists. While investigators still don’t know what caused the leak at WIPP, Hancock said human error, equipment failure, a roof collapse in the underground storage facilities or an explosion related to chemicals in the containers are among the possible causes of the radiation leak. If a roof collapse, human error and equipment failure are all ruled out as causes, that leaves “either something with the waste in the containers like a chemical reaction, or there’s some other option that the agency hasn’t considered,” Hancock said. The Environment Department, which oversees the WIPP permit, in 2013 stopped requiring chemical tests on waste containers sent to the facility. Chemical testing was not the only way to verify that the contents were permitted at the Carlsbad repository, but it was a critical one, Hancock said. Chemical tests of samples taken from the space at the top of barrels of packed waste — known as head space gas — helped determine the types of materials inside and ensure that barrels with volatile chemicals weren’t incorrectly sent to the facility. From the time WIPP opened in 1999 until 2006, every waste container shipped to the facility had a chemical test done on the head space gas, under the permit issued by the state Environment Department. In 2006, the department approved a change to the permit requested by the Department of Energy and reduced chemical testing, requiring it on only a few waste barrels from a single waste stream. In 2010, the Environment Department, then under Secretary Ron Curry, reviewed the WIPP permit again but kept the chemical test requirement. In 2013, under the direction of new Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn, the WIPP permit was modified to make
chemical testing voluntary. The Environment Department said mandatory chemical testing hadn’t changed any waste designated for WIPP and could still be used “when it is determined to be necessary,” according to responses given during permit hearings. The Environment Department denies the inspection change weakens oversight. “Despite false claims that head space gas inspections of [transuranic] waste containers no longer occur as a result of WIPP permit modifications made in 2006 and 2013, the New Mexico Environment Department continues to require chemical sampling when necessary and appropriate as required by the existing permit,” said Jim Winchester, the department’s communications director. “Since chemical sampling began, the additional information gained has not shown any need for changes to the waste stream disposal requirements. A final analysis of the February incidents at WIPP will dictate what, if any, changes to sampling occur.” Shipments of waste not permitted at WIPP have happened before. In 2004, the federally funded Environmental Evaluation Group expressed concerns about the Department of Energy’s attempt to reduce chemical testing on the waste drums. That same year, workers at WIPP found barrels of waste shipped from the Idaho National Laboratory that didn’t belong in the facility. The Department of Energy temporarily suspended shipments from the lab. About 108 barrels were already stored underground at WIPP before the problem was discovered. In 2006, the federal agency again temporarily suspended shipments to WIPP from the Idaho lab after liquid was found in a waste drum that was supposed to be dry. Then in 2007, the agency suspended shipments from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project in Idaho, operated by Bechtel
BWXT, after workers found the contents of a waste drum hadn’t been properly certified. There’s no evidence yet that a problem with a container caused the leak at WIPP on Feb. 14. WIPP closed after an air monitor detected a radioactive leak in the underground salt caverns. The leak occurred nine days after an underground salt-hauling truck caught on fire. Officials believe the two incidents are unrelated. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, in a March 21 letter to Energy Department Secretary Ernest Moniz, noted, “Operations at the WIPP site were not performed with the rigor necessary for a hazard category 2 defense nuclear facility, especially for operations that were deemed to be nonnuclear in nature. Both the federal and contractor workforce proved unprepared for emergency response. No one was seriously hurt in either event, but these were both near misses.” Until WIPP reopens, Los Alamos will continue to ship its radioactive waste to the Texas facility. A 2005 consent order between the New Mexico Environment Department and Los Alamos National Laboratory required the lab to remove 3,706 cubic meters of transuranic waste stored above ground and ship it to WIPP. Most of the waste dates to the lab’s nuclear research and testing from the Manhattan Project and the Cold War era. The lab is to remove all the legacy waste by June and all the new waste by the end of 2014. The lab expects to ship 120 truckloads of waste containers to the Waste Control Specialists facility in Texas, six miles east of Eunice, N.M. Another 280 truckloads of LANL-related transuranic waste from the Idaho National Laboratory also will be shipped to the Texas facility. Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com. Follow her on Twitter @stacimatlock.
Reforms: Special recruiter to help fill jobs Continued from Page A-1 identified as a high-risk, high-need area concerning child welfare services. “It makes no sense for an officer and a caseworker to investigate the same incident and never share notes or even speak with one another beyond their initial meeting,” Martinez said. In the case involving Varela, Albuquerque police and Children, Youth and Families Department officials have been criticized for not removing the boy from his home after receiving reports of abuse. On Wednesday, Gil Vigil, one of the two Albuquerque police officers under investigation for how they handled an abuse call at the Varela home last June, was fired, said his attorney, Sam Bregman. Vigil did nothing wrong and the firing was unjustified, Bregman said. The boy’s mother, Synthia VarelaCasaus, has pleaded not guilty to more
than 20 charges related to the boy’s death. Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, stressed that boosting caseworker and legal staff would be a key element in reforming New Mexico’s child welfare system. Still, the governor’s initiatives sound like a reasonable beginning, she said. “We absolutely must build a system where children who are in danger are immediately removed from the danger and, on the other hand, where children are not unnecessarily removed from their families,” Chasey said. Martinez said one way to prevent children from falling through the cracks will be a policy change requiring high-level reviews of families who have been investigated at least twice by CYFD. Department Secretary Yolanda Deines said that will ensure greater scrutiny of homes where there appears to be a pattern concerning conduct. State law enforcement officers also will be required to contact CYFD when
dispatched to child welfare calls to determine whether there have been any prior interactions between the agency and the household. The use of smartphones, tablets and other technology to access such information is needed, state officials said. Additionally, the governor announced a pilot program in Bernalillo County to establish a new class of caseworkers known as family support workers, who will work regularly with families that have been the subject of three or more child welfare investigations. To address staffing problems and overwhelming caseloads, Martinez called for the hiring of a special recruiter to work with New Mexico State University and other schools of social work to identify prospects to fill jobs. The state is also boosting compensation for caseworkers to stem turnover and make New Mexico more competitive among neighboring states that are also scrambling to hire social workers.
Cap: Breyer issues a rare oral dissent Continued from Page A-1 the minority saying that such oversight was needed to ensure a functioning democracy. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for four justices in the controlling opinion, said the overall limits could not survive First Amendment scrutiny. “There is no right in our democracy more basic,” he wrote, “than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.” In a dissent from the bench, Justice Stephen Breyer called the majority opinion a disturbing development that raised the overall contribution ceiling to “the number infinity.” “If the court in Citizens United opened a door,” he said, “today’s decision may well open a floodgate.” Such oral dissents are rare, and they signal deep disagreements. But both Roberts and Breyer also noted from the bench that the other side’s arguments were well presented. Wednesday’s decision did not affect familiar base limits on contributions from individuals to candidates, currently $2,600 per candidate in primary and general elections. But it said that overall limits of $48,600 by individuals every two years for contributions to all federal candidates violated the First Amendment, as did separate aggregate limits on contributions to political party committees, currently $74,600. In his written opinion, Breyer said Wednesday’s decision would allow “a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign.” He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The ruling, which goes in effect in a matter of weeks, concerned only contributions from individuals. Federal law continues to ban direct contributions by corporations and unions, though they remain free to spend unlimited sums through “super PACs” and similar vehicles. The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, was brought by Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, and the Republican National Committee. McCutcheon, who had contributed a total of about $33,000 to 16 candidates for federal office in the 2012 election cycle, said he had wanted to give $1,776 each to 12 more but was stopped by the overall cap for individuals. The party committee said it wanted to receive contributions above the legal limit for political committees. In an interview last fall,
McCutcheon said his goal was to encourage the adoption of conservative principles. “To me,” he said, “being a conservative means smaller government and more freedom.” Roberts said the core purpose of the First Amendment was to protect political speech from government interference, even if many people might welcome it. “They would be delighted to see fewer television commercials touting a candidate’s accomplishments or disparaging an opponent’s character,” the chief justice wrote. “Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so, too, does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects. If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.” The decision chipped away at the central distinction drawn drawn in Buckley v. Valeo, the court’s seminal 1976 campaign finance decision. Independent spending, the court said in Buckley, is political speech protected by the First Amendment. But contributions may be capped, the court said then, in the name of preventing corruption. The court added in passing that aggregate contribution limits were a “quite modest restraint upon protected political activity” that “serves to prevent evasion” of the base limits. Roberts said that brief passage on overall limits had to be reconsidered in light of later regulatory developments and other factors. But he added that the Buckley decision’s general structure remained intact. “We see no need,” he said, “to revisit Buckley’s distinction between contributions and expenditures.” The chief justice said that while the $2,600 base limits were also intact, the overall caps placed an unacceptable burden on “an individual’s right to participate in the public debate through political expression and political association.” “The government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse,” he wrote. Leveling the playing field is not an acceptable interest for the government, Roberts said. Nor is “the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected officials or political parties,” he added, quoting Citizens United.
Dems: Heinrich says ruling ‘deeply flawed’ Continued from Page A-1 While the decision does not apply to state elections, Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, said in a statement, “This decision lays out a welcome mat for corruption here in New Mexico and across the country.” The decision prompted a couple from Santa Barbara, Calif., to protest Tuesday at the state Capitol in Santa Fe. Antonia Robertson and Dr. Laurence Dworet carried handmade signs saying, “Get Big Money Out of Politics” and “Big Money in Politics Kills Democracy.” In general, Democrats and groups that keep tabs on money in politics have denounced the decision, while Republicans have applauded it. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that the decision is “an important first step toward restoring the voice of candidates and party committees and a vindication for all those who support robust, transparent political discourse.” But Udall, who last year introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Congress and state governments to pass spending limits for campaigns, said in his statement, “Americans already believe the election system has been fundamentally corrupted by big money from corporate special interests. And today, the
Court has confirmed their fears in its seriously misguided decision, which makes it legal for a few wealthy individuals to flood campaigns with cash, drowning out the voices of regular voters.” Sen. Martin Heinrich agreed. “This deeply flawed Supreme Court decision continues down a path that equates money with speech and corporations with people,” he said in a statement. “Make no mistake; decisions like this one and Citizens United erode the integrity of our political process and the public’s faith in our leaders to do what’s right for the American people.” U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-Santa Fe, said, “Once again, the Supreme Court has struck a blow to our efforts to get money out of politics, and reinforces the importance of passing comprehensive reform that limits the ability of individuals, special interest groups, and corporations to spend endless amounts of money in an effort to unduly influence elections.” Luján pointed out that he’s a co-sponsor of the House version of Udall’s constitutional amendment as well as a co-sponsor of the 2012 Disclose Act, which was aimed at limiting corporate money in campaigns, and legislation to provide public financing of congressional elections. Contact Steve Terrell at sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.