The Safe Drinking Water Act, the safety provisions of the Clean

Hear these words of Josh Fox, a voice that rose from the earth’s wounded places: “The Safe Drinking Water Act, the safety provisions of the Clean Water Acts, the Clean Air Act, the Superfund Law—the gas industry is exempt from all these basic environmental and worker protections. They don’t have to disclose the chemicals they use. They don’t have to play by the same rules as anybody else.” This is not a soft utterance, but a thunderclap, a revelation of injustice. For here he unveils a truth: that while the common man must bow before the law, powerful industries bend it to their will, leaving the soil, the rivers, and the people unguarded.

The ancients knew that when kings or merchants stood above the law, ruin followed. For the law is the great equalizer, the chain that binds strong and weak alike to justice. But when the gas industry, shielded by exemptions, casts aside the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, they claim for themselves a throne higher than the law itself. They pour unknown chemicals into the ground, cloaked in secrecy, while the people drink and breathe in ignorance. This is no minor trespass; it is a betrayal of the covenant between rulers, workers, and the earth itself.

Consider the tale of Dimock, Pennsylvania, where flames leapt from the faucets of homes because gas wells had poisoned the water. Families found their wells tainted, their health endangered, their land diminished in worth. When they sought protection, they discovered that the laws designed to defend them—the acts that safeguard water and air—were weakened, their power stripped away by exemptions granted to industry. Here the words of Fox find flesh: the rules that shield ordinary citizens were not applied to those who profited most, and so the people bore the burden of sickness and despair.

This is the meaning of Fox’s lament: when laws are bent, the balance of justice shatters. The Superfund Law, meant to force polluters to pay for the cleanup of their poisons, does not bind those who drill for gas. The Clean Water Acts, forged to keep rivers pure, do not demand accountability from them. The Clean Air Act, which guards the breath of every child, does not restrain their fumes. And so, the people and the earth suffer wounds while those responsible walk away untouched.

The ancients would call this hubris—the arrogance of those who believe themselves beyond reproach. History bears witness to its cost: mighty empires fell when greed devoured restraint, when rivers turned foul, when lands were left barren by those who plundered without heed. Babylon fell, Rome decayed, and countless kingdoms crumbled under the weight of their own excess. Shall we, too, walk that path, blind to the lesson carved in the ruins of ages past?

The lesson is carved in fire: laws must bind all equally, or they cease to be laws at all. If one group is granted exemption, then justice is fractured, and the people become subjects of power rather than citizens of a shared covenant. Fox’s words call us to vigilance: demand transparency, demand accountability, demand that no industry, however vast, stands above the protections of workers, water, and air.

And for each of us, let the call be practical: speak truth, support leaders who refuse to bend before industry’s coin, and join with neighbors to resist secrecy and corruption. Do not be lulled into silence by promises of wealth, for poisoned water and fouled air cannot be bought back with gold. In your life, cherish the land beneath you, question the sources of your energy, and lend your voice to those who seek justice for the earth.

So let these words echo: no man, no industry, no empire is above the law of the earth. The air belongs to all, the water belongs to all, the soil belongs to all. Guard them as you would your own life, for indeed, they are your life. And if you stand firm, refusing to yield to despair, then perhaps the children yet unborn will inherit not a wasteland, but a world where justice flows as freely as clean water.