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.
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Apr 25, 2024
A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel's war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they're on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who "demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel." They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, "This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!"
"As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don't give up," Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. "We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail."
Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
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Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
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Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
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Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
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The 3-2 vote along party lines to reclassify broadband as a public service under Title II of the Communications Act came seven months after FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced the push in the wake of the U.S. Senate confirming Commissioner Anna Gomez.
Commissioner Geoffrey Starks joined Rosenworcel and Gomez to launch the rulemaking process last year and finalize the policy change on Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington both aligned with the powerful telecom industry by opposing the effort to prevent internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful online content.
Demand Progress Education Fund senior campaigner Joey DeFrancesco said the revival "has been desperately needed" since former FCC Chair Ajit Pai—an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump—led the "disastrous decision" in 2017 to gut a 2015 agency policy codifying the principle that has been foundational to the internet since its inception.
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"The FCC's vote today returns the internet to the American people."
Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron declared that "everyone should celebrate today's FCC vote."
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Aaron praised Rosenworcel and her staff for leading the restoration effort, as well as Starks and Gomez for working with her to reverse the Trump FCC's move and ensure "that the agency can once again protect internet users whenever big phone and cable companies like AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum, and Verizon attempt to harm them."
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Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner and current Common Cause special adviser, was similarly enthusiastic, saying that "if I weren't out of the country today, I would be personally at the FCC jumping up and down, saluting the majority for reinstituting the network neutrality rules that were so foolishly eliminated by the previous commission."
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The vote notably comes during an election year—and as Democratic President Joe Biden, a net neutrality supporter, is gearing up for a November rematch against Trump.
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Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, also piled on the praise, proclaiming that "today marks the last day that internet service providers can continue to put profit over people."
"We are thrilled that the FCC now has the authority it needs to protect consumers, promote the exercise of First Amendment rights online, and ensure that everyone has access to high-quality, affordable internet," she said. "However, we urge the commission not to exercise its authority to preempt consistent state laws that grant consumers additional protections."
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