Page 8A
NATION
East Oregonian
BRIEFLY
Biologists say
there’s enough
data to decide wolf
protection
GRANTS PASS (AP) —
State biologists are telling
the Oregon Fish and Wildlife
Commission there is enough
information to consider
taking the gray wolf off the
state endangered species list.
A draft status review
was posted Tuesday on
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife website
with materials for the
commission’s next meeting.
The meeting’s agenda
includes a formal staff
recommendation that the
commission determine there
LVVLJQL¿FDQWLQIRUPDWLRQWR
start the rulemaking process.
$¿QDOGHFLVLRQLVQRW
scheduled until August in
Salem, but the commission
LVWRPDNHWKH¿UVWVWHSLQWKH
process — deciding whether
it has enough information to
consider the issue — when it
meets April 24 in Bend.
At last count, Oregon had
77 wolves descended from
animals introduced in Idaho
in the 1990s. The 76-page
status report says they are
projected to increase at a
rate of 7 percent a year, and
the probability of a major
drop in population is very
low. There is plenty of
habitat available on public
lands, and wolves continue
to expand their range,
establishing at least one new
pack in the western third of
the state.
The rate of wolf attacks
on livestock has been low,
the review notes.
Hoping to gain greater
freedom to kill wolves
attacking livestock, the
Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association has been
pressing for the commission
to delist wolves since a
statewide census last winter
showed they had exceeded
their restoration goal of four
breeding pairs producing
pups that survive a year
for three years running. At
last count, there were at
least seven breeding pairs,
six in northeastern Oregon
and one, led by the famous
wanderer OR-7, in the
southern Cascades.
University of
Oregon names
Michael Schill next
president
EUGENE (AP) —
Michael Schill, dean of the
law school at University
of Chicago, was named
president of the University
of Oregon on Tuesday,
EHFRPLQJWKHVFKRRO¶V¿IWK
leader in six years.
The new president takes
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transition at the institution,
which was freed last year
from the statewide university
system and is now led by
an independent governing
board with ambitions for
a big endowment and a
QDWLRQDOSUR¿OH
Schill will have to
contend with diminished
state funding for higher
education and a need to raise
money from private donors.
Lillis said a reputation for
prodigious fundraising was a
big factor in the decision to
hire him.
$¿UVWJHQHUDWLRQFROOHJH
student when he enrolled
at Princeton in the 1970s,
Schill said he believes public
universities are the key
to opportunity for young
people.
“I won’t rest until every
family that has a child says
to that child, ‘You should go
to the University of Oregon,
because you will get the best
possible education,’ “ Schill
told reporters in a news
conference on the Eugene
campus.
Before starting at
Chicago in 2010, Schill
was the law dean at the
University of California,
/RV$QJHOHVIRU¿YH\HDUV
He was previously on the
law school faculty at New
York University and the
University of Pennsylvania,
where his research was
focused on property and real
estate law. He earned a law
degree from Yale Universit.
Schill’s appointment
was approved unanimously.
He begins July 1, replacing
Interim President Scott
Coltrane, who took over
when Michael Gottfredson
resigned abruptly last
summer.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Congress will get say on nuke deal
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Bowing to
pressure from Republicans and his
own party, President Barack Obama
on Tuesday relented to a compromise
empowering Congress to reject his
emerging nuclear pact with Iran.
The rare and reluctant agreement
between the president and the Re-
publican-led Congress came after the
White House maintained for weeks
that congressional interference could
jeopardize sensitive negotiations with
Tehran.
But lawmakers refused to back
down from their insistence that Con-
gress have a formal role in what could
be a historic deal to prevent Iran from
developing nuclear weapons.
The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee unanimously approved
the compromise bill shortly after
White House spokesman Josh Earnest
conveyed the president’s decision to
sign it.
“Maybe they saw the handwriting
on the wall,” House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the White
House dropped its opposition.
Both houses of Congress are now
likely to pass the bill, which cleared
the committee 19-0. It’s expected to
come before the full Senate as soon as
next week.
A vote on an actual agreement to
lift economic sanctions in exchange
for Iranian nuclear concessions would
come later, if negotiations between
the Obama administration, Iran and
¿YHRWKHUQDWLRQVFRPHWRIUXLWLRQ
Obama retains his right to veto any
attempt by Congress to scuttle such a
pact if the time comes. To override a
veto would require a two-thirds ma-
jority of both the House and Senate,
meaning some Democrats would
have to oppose their president to sink
a deal.
The White House’s announcement
By PETER WONG
Capital Bureau
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
A Capitol Hill police officer asks members of the protest group Code-
Pink to sit down during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee busi-
ness meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday to debate and vote on the Iran
Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015.
came after an intensive administra-
tion effort to prevent Democrats from
signing on to legislation requiring
Obama to submit any pact with Iran
to Congress.
International negotiators are trying
to reach a deal blocking Iran’s path
toward nuclear weapons in exchange
for relief from economic sanctions
that are crippling its economy.
“We believe it is our role to ensure
that any deal with Iran makes them
accountable, is transparent and is
enforceable,” said Sen. Bob Corker,
R-Tenn., chairman of Foreign Rela-
tions Committee.
Corker said Secretary of State
John Kerry was lobbying against the
legislation on Capitol Hill a few hours
before the vote. The Republican said
the White House’s sudden support
was dictated by the number of sena-
tors — Republicans and Democrats
— backing the measure.
“I supported today’s compromise
after the administration assured me
that the reworked bill would pre-
serve our negotiators’ ability to do
their jobs,” said Sen. Chris Murphy,
D-Conn.
Obama, whose foreign policy leg-
acy would be burnished by a deal with
Iran, has been in a standoff for months
with lawmakers who said Congress
should have a chance to weigh in and
remain skeptical that Iran will honor
an agreement.
The United States, Britain,
France, Germany, Russia and Chi-
na reached a preliminary agreement
with Iran on April 2 to curb its nu-
FOHDUSURJUDPDQGKRSHWR¿QDOL]HD
pact by June 30.
House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., who opposed the
original bill as “harmful to the negoti-
ations,” sent a letter to colleagues late
Tuesday expressing support for the
compromise worked out by Corker
and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.
Tale of worker asleep in hold is a warning
SEATTLE (AP) — The
misadventure of a baggage
handler who fell asleep in
the cargo hold of a jetlin-
er should be a warning for
airlines to improve security
procedures, safety experts
said Tuesday.
The worker banged on
the plane for help shortly af-
ter takeoff on Monday from
Seattle. Pilots heard the
noise and quickly returned
to the airport. The worker
was not injured.
The Federal Aviation
Administration was investi-
gating, but few new details
emerged Tuesday about
the bizarre incident at Se-
attle-Tacoma International
Airport.
Alaska Airlines has said
the leader of a baggage-load-
ing crew noticed the worker
was missing and tried to call
and text him before conclud-
ing he had gone home at the
end of his 9 1/2-hour shift.
Safety experts say the
crew should not have closed
the cargo doors of Flight 448
to Los Angeles until they
had accounted for the miss-
ing worker.
“This is a ‘huh?’ mo-
ment,” said Thomas Antho-
ny, director of the aviation
security program at the
University of Southern Cal-
ifornia and a former FAA
RI¿FLDO
“That supervisor said,
‘Huh, I wonder where
Louie is?’ The ‘huh’ is
a yellow light that you
need to pay attention to,”
he said. “The worst thing
you can do is just say, ‘It’s
KIRO 7 via AP
In this frame from video, workers walk with a Men-
zies Aviation cargo worker after the worker was
removed from the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines
airplane Monday at Seattle-Tacoma International
Airport.
probably nothing.”’
Anthony said airports
are responsible for screen-
ing workers with access to
planes while airlines are re-
sponsible for the security of
an aircraft.
$ 86 DYLDWLRQ RI¿FLDO
said there is no legal re-
quirement that airline crews
check a cargo hold before
HYHU\ ÀLJKW 7KH SHUVRQ
spoke on condition of ano-
nymity because airline secu-
rity programs contain sensi-
tive information and are not
public documents.
Investigators are likely to
examine how the worker got
left on the plane with lug-
gage that had been screened.
“How do you have some-
thing in the cargo bin that
you don’t know is there?”
asked John Cox, a safety
consultant and airline pilot.
Alaska contracts for
ramp work with Menzies
Aviation, an English compa-
ny that performs that work at
numerous airports.
“Our policies and pro-
cedures ... were knowingly
violated by an experienced
employee who hid in the
hold of an aircraft and elect-
ed to go to sleep,” Menzies
said in a press release. “This
matter remains under inter-
nal investigation.”
0HQ]LHV RI¿FLDOV GH-
clined to release the work-
er’s name and said no de-
cision had been made on
whether anyone would be
disciplined.
The employee had
worked at Menzies for 18
months and was fortunate he
was trapped in a part of the
plane that was pressurized
and temperature-controlled
IRU WKH HQWLUH ÀLJKW 7KH
worker had been off work
the previous two days, the
company said.
7KH ÀLJKW FDUULHG
passengers and six crew
members. It was more than
an hour behind schedule
when it eventually arrived
in Los Angeles, the airline
said. There was no immedi-
ate word on how much the
delay cost the airline.
Such incidents are rare
but have occurred.
— In 2011, a US Air-
ways bag handler was ac-
cidentally locked inside
the cargo hold of a plane at
Reagan National Airport.
A passenger heard the man
banging on the underside of
WKHÀRRUDQGDOHUWHGDÀLJKW
attendant.
— In 2009, a bag han-
GOHU IRU -HW%OXH ÀHZ IURP
New York to Boston in the
cargo hold. The 21-year-old
said he fell asleep and pan-
icked when he realized the
SODQHZDVLQÀLJKW+HXVHG
his cellphone to call the air-
OLQHGXULQJWKHÀLJKW
Emily Ann Smith
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Amtrak
schedule
must
change
SALEM — One key
legislator says Oregon will
continue state-supported pas-
senger rail service between
Portland and Eugene, despite
press reports suggesting oth-
erwise.
Sen. Betsy Johnson,
D-Scappoose, says lawmak-
ers will come up with enough
money to continue twice-dai-
ly runs in the Willamette Val-
ley.
“There is no story here,”
says Johnson, who’s the Sen-
ate co-chairwoman of the
Legislature’s joint budget
subcommittee on transporta-
tion and economic develop-
ment.
On Dec. 1, former Gov.
John Kitzhaber’s budget
package proposed $10.4 mil-
lion in subsidies from the
general fund to Amtrak to
operate the service. That’s in
addition to around $18 mil-
lion the state kicks in from
non-general fund sources.
So far, the Legislature’s
budget framework proposes
just $5 million in state gener-
al funds.
But without the full $10.4
million, “we will likely have
to end passenger service,”
says Shelley Snow, a spokes-
woman for the Oregon De-
partment of Transportation.
Johnson said that’s not go-
ing to happen.
The elimination of the
service would prove embar-
UDVVLQJWRVWDWHRI¿FLDOVZKR
in 2009 used $38.4 million
to buy two locomotives and
passenger cars for two trains
to service the Oregon corri-
dor. They began service in
2013.
Oregon contracts with
Amtrak to provide the ser-
vice, and has relied on feder-
al subsidies to pay for part of
the cost. But those subsidies
have now ended.
In the next two-year bud-
get cycle starting July 1, the
state will have to pick up the
full cost of the service af-
ter ticket sales, which cover
about two-thirds of the bill.
But before that happens,
Johnson says Amtrak has
to do something about the
schedule to make the service
more appealing to riders.
7KH¿UVWWUDLQOHDYHV3RUW-
land at 6 a.m. on weekdays,
too early for potential com-
muters bound for work in
Salem. Prior Jan. 1, 2014, the
¿UVWWUDLQOHIWDWDP²
too late for commuters.
“It’s all messed up,” John-
son says.
Tell your favorite graduate
how proud you are in our
Graduation 2015
special section in the
East Oregonian and
Hermiston Herald
& share their
"Then" & "Now" Photos!
Publishes: May 30 th
Send in your text and photos to
psmootz@eastoregonian.com
or bring to Paula at the
East Oregonian office by May 18 th .
Mailing address: Attn: Paula Smootz
211 SE Byers Ave., Pendleton, OR 97801