Region 5 - Office of Regional Counsel

Bertram C. Frey is the Deputy Regional Counsel of the U.S. EPA Region 5, Office of Regional Counsel (ORC) in Chicago, Illinois. Region 5 ORC employs approximately 110 attorneys.  Mr. Frey is responsible for review of enforcement cases, and defensive litigation for air, water, safe drinking water, pesticides, toxic substances, oil pollution, hazardous waste and Superfund matters in Region 5.  Mr. Frey also reviews financial law, tribal law, labor law and personnel law matters for the region.

Mr. Frey served a term as chairman of the Environmental Law Section Council, Illinois State Bar Association from 1999-2000.  He was reappointed to Section Council in 2002.  Mr. Frey currently serves on the advisory board of the Legal Institute for the Great Lakes and as Chair of the Environmental Commission of Highland Park, Illinois.  He has published articles on issues of international environmental law, environmental self-audits and self-audit policy, environmental enforcement, public water supply (legal issues), underground storage tanks, and the public trust doctrine as a vehicle for environmental protection, and is coauthor of an article on the anti-backsliding provisions of the Clean Water Act.  He is also coauthor of an Environmental Law Institute monograph entitled Crafting Superior Environmental Enforcement Solutions (2000).  In addition, he authored the article on environmental law in the international legal encyclopedia entitled Legal Systems of the World: A Political, Social, and Cultural Encyclopedia (2002) and the article on environmental regulation in the international Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (2004).  He is a frequent speaker on a variety of environmental law issues.  Prior to his service with the U.S. EPA, Mr. Frey served as a law clerk to two former presiding judges of the Illinois Appellate Court, 5th District, the Honorable Charles E. Jones and the Honorable John Karns.  He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College in 1969 and his law degree from the Washington University School of Law in 1974.  He is admitted to the bar in both Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Mr. Frey can be contacted at the following address:

For a more complete list of Mr. Frey's articles, presentations, and testimony on behalf of the EPA, please click on the categories below.

• Published Articles (PDF) (79 kb, 2 pgs about PDF)
• Selected Speeches, Presentations, and Interviews (PDF) (23.4kb, 10 pgs about PDF)
• Testimony (PDF) (8kb, 1 pg about PDF)