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That's essentially what cap-and-trade attempts to do. I'm somewhat skeptical of this approach because 1) it's expensive to measure, 2) many of the measurements only work for factory smokestacks and other "obvious" sources of pollution, and 3) even if you could accurately measure the amount of pollution, it's difficult to attach a specific monetary value to it.
I'm certainly open to the idea, but I have my doubts as to how well it would work from a practical standpoint.
Not at all. Cap and trade tries to set arbitrary prices, yet still allow some pollution within a certain range. It has no market basis. Do you really want democrats setting prices if they are going to charge companies?
My position, though more nuanced and idealistic, would be to measure all pollution, but that in order for a company to be allowed to pollute, they have to strike a deal with neighbors about how much they can pollute and how much they will be compensated. Yes, I realize that it is impossible now because this would only really work when companies are deciding where to build a factory, but it really is the only fair system. Right now, I think you could just try to determine what damages you are getting from pollution and try to set prices based on that.
I think in this case, we are talking about what to do after the fact. I cannot imagine that anyone would prefer that this oil be spilled over it not. So with the cat out of the bag, it than becomes time to discuss remediation instead of prevention.
However, prevention is always better.
But it is the same problem. How do you price it? No one owns that water, so it's kind of hard to determine how valuable it was.