Environmental Policy

Adam Kolton, Senior Director, Congressional and Federal Affairs, Washington, DC
Kolton serves as National Wildlife Federation's Sr. Director of Congressional and Federal Affairs, managing its Washington, DC office of more than 30 conservation policy experts, advocates, attorneys and organizers. He first joined NWF in June of 2002 as its Legislative Director, helping set strategy and coordinate outreach to Members of Congress on key campaign priorities, including clean water and wetlands issues, energy policy, federal appropriations for wildlife conservation and protection of public lands in Alaska and the Rocky Mountain West. He has testified before several congressional committees, and has been invited to speak on environmental issues before the House Democratic Caucus, the DC Bar Association and a number of other forums. Prior to NWF, Adam served as the Arctic Campaign Director for the Alaska Wilderness League, where he helped lead the conservation community's successful campaign to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from 1997 to 2002. Kolton graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a degree in Journalism and History.

John Kostyack, Executive Director, Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming, Washington, DC

John Kostyack is Executive Director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming for the National Wildlife Federation, where he leads a nationwide initiative to conserve wildlife and ecosystems threatened by climate change. A top priority of this initiative is enacting natural resources protection and funding provisions in federal global warming legislation. John frequently writes and lectures on meeting the challenges of conserving U.S. wildlife and ecosystems. With Professor Dan Rohlf, he recently published ”Conserving Endangered Species in an Era of Global Warming” (Env. Law Rptr. April 2008). He also is the author, with Professor Reid Ewing, of Endangered by Sprawl: How Runaway Development Threatens America’s Wildlife (January 2005), the first national study to quantify the impact of sprawling land use patterns on the nation’s biological diversity. He serves on the steering committee of the Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program, a national grant-making program developing new tools to accelerate conservation of U.S. wildlife habitat.

John is a longtime leader in Endangered Species Act policy and litigation. He helped to win the endangered species conservation tax incentive for private landowners recently passed by Congress. He has testified before Congressional committees on a wide variety of ESA matters, has led coalition efforts to strengthen the ESA, and has won victories in cases to protect habitat for the ivory-billed woodpecker, Key deer, Florida panther, gray wolf, and Swainson’s hawk. He also represented a diverse coalition of wildlife conservationists in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Court’s first-ever global warming case, Massachusetts v EPA. John holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a J.D. cum laude from Stetson University College of Law.

Jim Lyon, Senior Vice President, Conservation, Washington DC
Lyon directs NWF’s conservation advocacy and policy programs carried out in NWF’s eight field offices and in Washington DC. During his tenure, Lyon has worked on a diverse range of important issues including: moving the U.S. Congress to address global warming; protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from energy development; defeating a 2005 congressional initiative to sell off millions of acres of public lands; encouraging Congress to pass landmark legislation to restore America’s Everglades; and successfully advocating for $17.1 billion in the 2002 Farm bill for on-the-ground conservation incentive programs for rural landowners. Prior to joining NWF in 1996 Lyon held policy positions at the Environmental Policy Institute, Friends of the Earth, and the Mineral Policy Center. Throughout his career, he has frequently lobbied and testified before Congress, published on natural resource policy and worked with numerous citizen and community organizations impacted by environmental degradation and pollution. Lyon holds a B.A in Political Science form Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA.

Julie Sibbing, Senior Program Manger for Wetlands and Agriculture Policy, Washington, DC
A staff member of the National Wildlife Federation since May 2000, Sibbing currently manages NWF’s efforts to improve and expand conservation and shape energy provisions in the Farm Bill, as well as overseeing the organization’s work to promote conservation of the nation’s wetlands. Sibbing has also worked extensively on wetlands policy issues over the past 11 years, including serving seven years as Co-chair of the Wetlands Working group of the Clean Water Network, a diverse coalition of more than 1,100 conservation and environmental groups across the country that work on water issues. More recently, Sibbing’s expertise on the wildlife implications of biofuels helped her to draft incentive programs for the 2007 Farm Bill that will enable landowners to begin to produce biomass for energy, while protecting, soil, water and wildlife resources. She holds a BS in Life Sciences and an MS in Forest Ecology from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.

James Schroeder, Senior Environmental Policy Specialist, Seattle, WA
Before joining NWF in 2005, James Schroeder worked for King County in Washington State, where he was program manager for the Strategic Initiatives Section, and co-chair of the Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Technical Committee. He directed a committee of local state, tribal, and federal agency scientists in developing the scientific foundation for a regional recovery plan for threatened Puget Sound Chinook salmon and bull trout. Schroeder has considerable experience implementing the Shoreline Management Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act for King County and the State of Washington. Schroeder has a master’s degree in environmental policy and conservation biology from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in biomedical ethics from Brown University.