[neolefty]

In principle yes. It requires some extra support though -- regulation alone won't lead to a healthy situation:

1. We need to pay & respect regulators well enough that people will want to pursue it as a career, because once you start down it you won't be allowed to work in industry.

2. Expertise can be difficult to develop, but it's absolutely necessary for complex industries. Who is best-equipped to regulate, say, fossil fuel exploration? An experienced expert from that industry, since they know the ins and outs intimately. But they are also likely to have conflicts of interest. See Deepwater Horizon for an example of how badly it can go wrong when expert regulators turn a blind eye.

Occasionally it will go very well, like with Tom Wheeler of the FCC. He is an expert veteran of the telecom industry, and he seems to have public good in mind, and he values the regulatory role well enough to put some real effort into it and take professional risks. But his case is exceptional -- it's rare to find someone like that, from what I've seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture