The Clean Water Act has done more to improve the physical condition of America’s waterways than any other law or policy I can think of. Before it passed in 1972, many of the nation’s lakes and rivers were unsafe for fishing or swimming.

Serious chemical accidents hit a five-year high in 2025, and most companies have no way to see that risk sitting inside their own supply chain. We’ve covered regulators using AI to target inspections and outside groups gathering their own emissions data. This week, the story moves further down the chain, to what happens when the incident isn’t at your facility at all. It’s at your supplier’s.

Last week I covered how regulators are increasingly using AI to decide who gets inspected. That’s one part of the story. Another part is that the government isn’t the only one watching.

What used to stay behind the fence line no longer does. Companies need to understand that.

After more than 20 years running criminal investigations at the EPA, and the years since helping companies work through compliance strategy, I kept seeing the same gap. The people making the call on EHS risk weren’t seeing the same picture that regulators and NGOs were already building. The information was there. Nobody was translating it at the right level, at the right pace.