This would work, but only if it allowed satellites to be exempted if they had a credible plan for deoribiting (which the vast majority of satellites launched to

This would work, but only if it allowed satellites to be exempted if they had a credible plan for deoribiting (which the vast majority of satellites launched today do, BTW). In that case, no one would actually pay the deposit, since it would cost several orders of magnitude more to go "get" a satellite (as opposed to just ensuring enough delta-V left over at the end of the mission to deorbit)