Stanford researchers show fracking's impact to drinking water sources
Our legal system has created limited liability corporations to improve economic efficiency, and then a network of regulations to keep corporations from doing bad things that liability might dissuade a normal person from doing.  We lurch between economically damaging regulations after something really bad happens, to regulatory capture after industry lobbying gets the attention of politicians.It seems to me that the whole thing is a mess that doesn't work very well.Here is my alternate proposal.  Corporations who engage in risky long-term behavior should have to purchase long-term insurance to cover liability for what they are doing.  These insurance contracts would be on terms set by insurers.Behind the scenes insurers could cover these contracts by putting money into index funds.  The fund would cover liability, the cost ensuring compliance with insurance terms, and after the period was up, would pay off investors.These funds would therefore trade at a discount to regular index funds that represents market estimates of the present value of future liability.  Therefore the insurance costs to companies would be a free market estimate of the cost to others of what you are doing.And voila!  Very little regulation.  No regulatory capture.  And people will get compensation.  (And LLCs can remain limited liability.)