[nommm-nommm]

I'd rather have the government use its power to proactively prevent rivers from being turned into toxic waste dumps rather than let it be a free for all and end up with a toxic waste dump and maybe a few dollars if I'm lucky. You're assuming that you'd actually be able to collect on that judgement. You can't if the plaintiff doesn't have the funds. For a real life example, a civilian shipyard worker named Casey Fury intentionally set a fire onboard the USS Miami that destroyed it. Part of his sentence was paying back $400 million to the Navy. Do you think the Navy is going to ever get anywhere near $400 million from some dude who will spend 17 of his life in jail and is stupid enough to set a fire onboard a submarine? The only chance of collecting even part of that is if he wins the lottery.

You're basically giving a company who is tanking permission to do whatever the fuck they want. Companies bankrupt and go out of business all the time.

There's going to be enforcement no matter what. I'd rather be proactive than reactive.