December, 09 2009, 01:28pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kathleen O'Neil, NPCA media relations, 202.419.3717
National Park Service Air Expert Receives Conservation Award for Protecting Clean Air in Our National Parks
WASHINGTON
This morning the National Parks Conservation Association
(NPCA) awarded Denver-based Don Shepherd, an environmental engineer
with the Air Resources Division of the National Park Service, the Stephen T. Mather Award for his distinguished efforts to protect America's national parks and wildlife from the threat of air pollution.
"There are few priorities more important to our national parks than
ensuring clean, healthy air for park visitors and wildlife," said Tom
Kiernan, NPCA president, upon presenting the award. "Thanks to Don
Shepherd, our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy cleaner
air and spectacular views in places like Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde,
and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks."
The award recognizes Shepherd's demonstrated initiative and
resourcefulness in promoting environmental protection, which embodies
wholeheartedly the spirit on which the Mather award was established
more than 25 years ago.
"By championing the laws that protect the air quality, safety, and
majestic views of our national parks, Shepherd took direct action-where
others may have hesitated-to promote the principles and practices of
good stewardship in our national parks," added Mark Wenzler, NPCA
director of clean air and climate programs.
Shepherd, who grew up near Wheeling, West Virginia, traveled to
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of America's most well-known
national military parks, to accept the prestigious award at the 32nd
annual Association of National Park Rangers Conference-also known as
the Ranger Rendezvous-on December 9, 2009.
Most notable during Shepherd's 12 years with the Park Service, and
his more than 30-year career as an environmental engineer, are his
efforts to prevent proposed coal fired power plants from spewing dirty
air pollution into our national parks. As such, he is known as a dogged
proponent of the legal right to clean air in our national parks.
First presented in 1984, NPCA's Stephen T. Mather Award is
named after the first director of the National Park Service Stephen T.
Mather and for the second year is supported and endowed by Booz Allen
Hamilton. Those who receive it have shown steadfast leadership and
persistent dedication to our national parks.
NPCA is a non-profit, private organization dedicated to protecting, preserving, and enhancing the U.S. National Park System.
LATEST NEWS
Israeli Forces Massacre 6 Palestinians Celebrating Wedding at Gaza School Shelter
"This isn't a truce, it's a bloodbath," said a relative of some of the victims, who included women, an infant, and a teenage girl.
Dec 20, 2025
Funerals were held Saturday in northern Gaza for six people, including children, massacred the previous day by Israeli tank fire during a wedding celebration at a school sheltering displaced people, as the number of Palestinians killed during the tenuous 10-week ceasefire rose to over 400.
On Friday, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank blasted the second floor of the Gaza Martyrs School, which was housing Palestinians displaced by the two-year war on Gaza in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
Al Jazeera and other news outlets reported that the attack occurred while people were celebrating a wedding.
Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abou Salmiya said those slain included a 4-month-old infant, a 14-year-old girl, and two women. At least five others were injured in the attack.
"It was a safe area and a safe school and suddenly... they began firing shells without warning, targeting women, children and civilians," Abdullah Al-Nader—who lost relatives including 4-month-old Ahmed Al-Nader in the attack—told Agence France-Presse.
Witnesses said IDF troops subsequently blocked first responders including ambulances and civil defense personnel from reaching the site for over two hours.
"We gathered the remains of children, elderly, infants, women, and young people," Nafiz al-Nader, another relative of the infant and others killed in Friday's attack, told reporters. "Unfortunately, we called the ambulance and the civil defense, but they couldn't get by the Israeli army."
The IDF said that “during operational activity in the area of the Yellow Line in the northern Gaza Strip, a number of suspicious individuals were identified in command structures," and that "troops fired at the suspicious individuals to eliminate the threat."
The Yellow Line is a demarcation boundary between areas of Gaza under active Israeli occupation—more than half of the strip's territory, including most agricultural and strategic lands—and those under the control of Hamas.
"The claim of casualties in the area is familiar; the incident is under investigation," the IDF said, adding that it "regrets any harm to uninvolved parties and acts as much as possible to minimize harm to them."
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces, including approximately 9,500 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Classified IDF documents suggest that more than 80% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were civilians.
Around 2 million Palestinians have also been displaced—on average, six times—starved, or sickened in the strip.
Gaza officials say at least 401 Palestinians have been killed since a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on October 10. Gaza's Government Media Office says Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 738 times.
"This isn't a truce, it's a bloodbath," Nafiz al-Nader told Agence France-Presse outside al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday.
Israel says Hamas broke the truce at least 32 times, with three IDF soldiers killed during the ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Israel is also facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague. A United Nations commission, world leaders, Israeli and international human rights groups, jurists, and scholars from around the world have called Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
Friday's massacre came as Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, other senior US officials, and representatives of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates met in Miami to discuss the second phase of Trump's peace plan, which includes the deployment of an international stabilization force, disarming Hamas, the withdrawal of IDF troops from the strip, and the establishment of a new government there.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's 9 New Prescription Drug Deals 'No Substitute' for Systemic Reform
"Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices," said one campaigner.
Dec 19, 2025
"Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world," President Donald Trump claimed Friday as the White House announced agreements with nine pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The administration struck most favored nation (MFN) pricing deals with Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi. The president—who has launched the related TrumpRx.gov—previously reached agreements with AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer.
"The White House said it has made MFN deals with 14 of the 17 biggest drug manufacturers in the world," CBS News noted Friday. "The three drugmakers that were not part of the announcement are AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Regeneron, but the president said that deals involving the remaining three could be announced at another time."
However, as Trump and congressional Republicans move to kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid and potentially leave millions more uninsured because they can't afford skyrocketing premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, some critics suggested that the new drug deals with Big Pharma are far from enough.
"When 47% of Americans are concerned they won't be able to afford a healthcare cost next year, steps to reduce drug prices for patients are welcomed, especially by patients who rely on one of the overpriced essential medicines named in today's announcement," said Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, in a statement.
"But voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," Basey stressed. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don't work if people can't afford them."
As the New York Times reported Friday:
Drugs that will be made available in this way include Amgen's Repatha, for lowering cholesterol, at $239 a month; GSK's asthma inhaler, Advair Diskus, at $89 a month; and Merck's diabetes medication Januvia, at $100 a month.
Many of these drugs are nearing the end of their patent protection, meaning that the arrival of low-cost generic competition would soon have prompted manufacturers to lower their prices.
In other cases, the direct-buy offerings are very expensive and out of reach for most Americans.
For example, Gilead will offer Epclusa, a three-month regimen of pills that cures hepatitis C, for $2,492 a month on the site. Most patients pay far less using insurance or with help from patient assistance programs. Gilead says on its website that "typically a person taking Epclusa pays between $0 and $5 per month" with commercial insurance or Medicare.
While medication prices are a concern for Americans who face rising costs for everything from groceries to utility bills, the outcome of the ongoing battle on Capitol Hill over ACA tax credits—which are set to expire at the end of the year—is expected to determine how many people can even afford to buy health insurance for next year.
The ACA subsidies fight—which Republicans in the US House of Representatives ignored in the bill they passed this week before leaving Capitol Hill early—has renewed calls for transitioning the United States from its current for-profit healthcare system to Medicare for All.
"At the heart of our healthcare crisis is one simple truth: Corporations have too much power over our lives," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday. "Medicare for All is how we take our power back and build a system that puts people over profits."
Jayapal reintroduced the Medicare for All Act in April with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The senator said Friday that some of his top priorities in 2026 will be campaign finance reform, income and wealth inequality, the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence, and Medicare for All.
Earlier this month, another backer of that bill, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said: "We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system. Yes, let's extend the ACA tax credits to prevent a huge spike in healthcare costs for millions. Then, let's finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits. We need Medicare for All."
It's not just progressives in Congress demanding that kind of transformation. According to Data for Progress polling results released late last month, 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All.'"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump: US Forces 'Striking Very Strongly' Against 70+ Targets in Syria
"Most anti-war president ever, also a winner of the FIFA Peace Prize, threatened to invade Venezuela for oil earlier this week and has now launched strikes in Syria," said one observer.
Dec 19, 2025
President Donald Trump—the self-described "most anti-war president in history"—on Friday said the US military is "striking very strongly" against Islamic State strongholds in Syria following the killing of two Iowa National Guard members and an American civilian interpreter in the Mideast nation.
"Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible," Trump said on his Truth Social network.
"We are striking very strongly against ISIS strongholds in Syria, a place soaked in blood which has many problems, but one that has a bright future if ISIS can be eradicated," the president continued. "The Government of Syria, led by a man who is working very hard to bring Greatness back to Syria, is fully in support."
"All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned—YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.," he added.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that "earlier today, US forces commenced OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE in Syria to eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites in direct response to the attack on US forces that occurred on December 13th in Palmyra, Syria."
According to the Wall Street Journal, Jordanian warplanes also took part in Friday's attacks, which reportedly hit more than 70 targets in Syria.
"This is not the beginning of a war—it is a declaration of vengeance," said Hegseth. "The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people. As we said directly following the savage attack, if you target Americans—anywhere in the world—you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you. Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue."
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that one of Friday's airstrikes killed ISIS leader Abu Yusif in Dayr az Zawr province in eastern Syria.
“As stated before, the United States—working with allies and partners in the region—will not allow ISIS to take advantage of the current situation in Syria and reconstitute," CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement. "ISIS has the intent to break out of detention the over 8,000 ISIS operatives currently being held in facilities in Syria. We will aggressively target these leaders and operatives, including those trying to conduct operations external to Syria."
During his first term, Trump followed through on his promise to "bomb the shit out of" ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq, killing thousands of civilians in a campaign launched by former President Barack Obama in 2014. Trump prematurely declared victory over ISIS in 2018.
Since then, the Biden and Trump administrations have bombed Syria, where around 1,000 US troops remain.
During his second term, Trump has ordered attacks on Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The president—who says he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—has also deployed warships and thousands of troops for a possible war on Venezuela.
"Most anti-war president ever, also a winner of the FIFA Peace Prize, threatened to invade Venezuela for oil earlier this week and has now launched strikes in Syria," political commentator David Pakman said on X in response to Friday's attacks.
Some observers noted that the strikes on Syria took place on the same day that the Trump administration released some of the files related to the late convicted sex criminal and longtime former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular