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When I heard that the Supreme Court of the United States had reversed a long-standing provision of the Clean Water Act, I couldn't help but think of Mike Forbeck.
Forbeck's untimely passing the same week as the Supreme Court decision reminded me of the important part his generation of environmental scientists, policy makers and regulators across the country played in reversing the nation's environmental fortunes.
Mike worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for a large portion of his professional career. Like the overwhelming majority of DEP staff I have come to know, he did the work he needed to do to make the laws work the way the lawmakers intended.
After the slew of environmental and workplace laws were passed in the '60s and '70s, it was Forbeck and thousands of his contemporaries who implemented the laws which reversed the tide of air pollution, contaminated water, unsafe workplaces and blighted landscapes.
Often forgetting how effective those efforts were, an undercurrent of anti-regulation sentiment has undermined recent efforts to continue and enhance that implementation.
When it comes to regulations and bureaucracies charged with enforcing them, there tend to be two extreme trains of thought. One extreme sees them as freedom and business-
killing nuisances. The other sees them as crucial protections from unsafe and unhealthy practices.
Most environmental laws were prompted by what the public and legislators saw as a crisis of avoidable problems and deaths. Most come with their own set of regulations authorized by the individual laws. The details of the regulations are left to the regulating agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or a similar state agency.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, workplace regulations were nearly non-existent and the serious injury and accidental death rates were extremely high. Every source and category -- the U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA, the U.S. Bureau of Mines and similar agencies -- show death rates in the first third of the 1900s to be 10 times or more than what they are today.
Not surprisingly, those historic charts show notable drops in death rates or pollution levels after laws were passed and regulations implemented to address the issues. Even with steady decreases in workplace deaths after 1900, there were more than 16 worker fatalities per 100,000 workers in 1970. After the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed (by a Democratic congress and signed into law by a Republican president), the fatality rate ultimately dropped to less than a third of that 1970 rate.
Contrary to the claims of critics, the overwhelming portion of regulations come to pass deliberately, with considerable public input and rigorous scientific scrutiny. The legislation requires such a process and I have seen it in action first-hand.
And this is what makes the Supreme Court decision especially frustrating. The majority of the court believes that "the waters of the United States" are not actually all the waters of the United States. This is complicated by the act's reference to "navigable waters," and it is this which has caused so much legal consternation.
If the Clean Water Act is to keep water clean, SCOTUS needs to accept that legislative intent or Congress needs to more clearly define "water."
John Frederick (www.johnjfrederick.org) served with Mike Forbeck on the state's Solid Waste and Recycling Fund Advisory Committees following Mike's retirement from DEP.