Testimony to EPA on Carbon Limits for New Coal Fired Power Plants 

Herschel Peeker tor the National Wildlife Federation 

May 24,2012 

Good morning. My name is Herschel Peeker, of the National Wildlife Federation, and I am here 

on behalf of our 47,000 wildlife advocates who submitted comments online to the EPA in 

support oflimits to carbon pollution from coal fired power plants. 

The National Wildlife Federation and our supporters who submitted comments to the EPA are in 

support oflimits to carbon pollution from power plants, because climate change is the number 

one threat to wildlife today. In the lifetime of a child born today, 20-30 percent of the world's 

plant and animal species will be on the brink of extinction because of global warming. 

Polar bears are a particularly vulnerable species for which the impacts of global warming are 

quite evident and alarming to National Wildlife Federation advocates. As climate change melts 

sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two thirds of polar bears will disappear by 

2050. This dramatic decline in the polar bear population is occurring in our lifetime, which is a 

miniscule fraction of the time polar bears have roamed the vast Arctic seas. 

Last year, in 2011, sea ice melted especially rapidly. Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was 

the lowest in the satellite record for that month. A female polar bear reportedly swam for nine 

days-nonstop--across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe, costing her 22 percent of 

her weight and her cub. These struggles are only worsening for the Arctic wildlife whose habitats 

are quickly altering. 

In southern portions of their range, like Hudson Bay, Canada, there is no sea ice during the 

summer, and the polar bears must live on land until the Bay freezes in the fall, whereupon they 

can again hunt on the ice. While on land during the summer, these bears eat little or nothing. In 

the past 20 years the ice-free period in Hudson Bay has increased by an average of 20 days, 

cutting seal hunting season short by nearly three weeks. Exacerbating the problems of the loss of 

hunting areas, the shrinking polar ice cap will also likely cause a decline in polar bears' prey: 

seals. 

Wildlife are struggling beyond the Arctic as well. The changing climate and associated extreme 

weather events are altering wildlife habitat and harming species across the country, including the 

western pika, waterfowl, coldwater fish, salmon, lizards, moose, and songbirds. The list goes on 

and on. 

National Wildlife Federation supporters from states across the country are in D.C. and Chicago 

to testify today, and sharing their first-hand accounts of the changes in water fowl migration, the 

decline in fish populations that depend on cold streams, and the changes to the forests and waters 
where we go to find wildlife, reconnect with nature, and pass on the love of wildlife and the 

outdoors with the next generation. 

National Wildlife Federation advocates strongly support limits on carbon pollution causing 

global warming because we want this wildlife to survive for the next generation to know. 

Along with our supporters, I strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed 

first-ever national carbon pollution limits for new power plant smokestacks and ask that the EPA 

continue to work on limits to existing power plants and other sources of pollution that cause 

global warming.