The ideal method by which polluters should pay for their pollution is to be held legally and fiscally accountable for their actions. Yet we do seem to part company on how those principles upon which we largely agree should be put into practice. I firmly believe that only by replacing those regulations with a tort-based approach can those principles ever be fully served, and that environmentalists should seriously consider whether their commitment to regulatory protections have blinded them to other, far greener, social arrangements and the inherent limitations of political regulation. The NRDCs belief is that ecological resources are by definition public commons that must be centrally regulated and stewarded by bureaucratic agents lest they be recklessly despoiled by industry. There are inherent problems with this approach that stymies the achievement of avoid environmental objectives.
Every facility is different.
Every air and water shed has different carrying capacities for different pollutants. There simply isn't enough manpower or expertise to carefully weigh the most efficient mandates or the most optimal controls necessary for each plant in each pollution shed. Only by the sheerest political coincidences are appropriate standards ever adopted. The only real explanation for this variance are the political considerations that went into the promulgation of each of those standards. This is a dangerous way to run the public health railroad.