Posted on October 3, 2014 by Andrea Field
The Blog Calendar Gods directed me to post something on September 16, 2014, which just happens to be the 40th anniversary of the date that I first started to practice law. Not wanting that coincidence to go to waste, I decided to look back 40 years, to a time when the practice of environmental law was far less complex – or, at least, the things that EPA then published in the Federal Register were a lot shorter.
On September 16, 1974, EPA’s rules and notices took up less than four pages in the Federal Register and consisted of a notice of receipt of applications for pesticide registration under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA); a correction to one line of a previously-published notice of proposed rulemaking under the Clean Water Act; and the approval of a compliance schedule under the State of Kansas’ state implementation plan. The entire Federal Register on that date was only 104 pages long.
Fast forward 40 years. EPA’s fairly typical Federal Register postings on September 16, 2014, include – as was the case 40 years ago – rulemaking proposals and notices under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and FIFRA; however, the September 16, 2014 proposals and notices from EPA take up more than 125 pages of the Federal Register, and a typical edition of the Federal Register these days is well over 300 pages long. I could complain that EPA did not celebrate my anniversary with the publication of a splashy huge new rule in the Federal Register – but I think many of my clients would consider that to be a good thing.
Perhaps the most significant change over the past 40 years, though, is to the overall length and complexity of the rules that are now appear in volume 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations. (There is that number “40” again.) In 1974, 40 C.F.R. – the volume of the code containing most of EPA’s regulations – was about 2000 pages long. In the decades following that time, 40 C.F.R. has steadily increased in size (and complexity). In 1984, it was approximately 5,800 pages long; by 1993, it topped 11,000 pages; and in 2012, there were over 25,000 pages of regulations in 40 C.F.R.
For those of you wondering what else was going on 40 years ago (outside of the practice of environmental law), let me share the following tidbits from September 16, 1974. The big news that day was President Ford’s announcement of his “Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters.” In addition, on that day, BART began operations in the Bay area, Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police swore-in their first female recruits, and Joe Namath was on the cover of Sports Illustrated (he was shown rehabbing his battered knees, hoping to play one more season in his $250,000-per-year contract with the New York Jets). Also, if I had stopped cutting my hair 40 years ago today, my golden locks would be more than six yards longer than they are today.
I will be thinking about all of this as I lift my glass this evening and toast all of you and begin year 41.
Tags: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, FIFRA
Clean Air Act | Clean Water Act | Environmental Protection Agency