I've heard people argue that a much more effective way to do environmental regulation would be to basically not regulate and instead increase liability standard

I've heard people argue that a much more effective way to do environmental regulation would be to basically not regulate and instead increase liability standards for environmental/health damage. Right now, in many cases, if a factory is dumping toxic sludge into a river and they're within EPA limits, there's nothing anybody can do to stop it. If you allowed farmers downstream to come after them for damaging crops (or whatever), or allowed class action suits against coal-burning power companies for cancer and such, imagine what that might do to incentive structures. I'm not sure I buy it, but the asbestos case makes me wonder.