America produces and manufacturers all sorts of products, of which, a common byproduct of certain industries, is some degree of pollution so created. This thus signifies that these industries that create pollution as part and parcel of their business enterprise, must have in place, the necessary financial means as well as the product processes so created that deals constructively with such pollution in a responsible and sustainable manner, in which harm to the environment and to the general public is minimized to the reasonable degree that it can be, and that such pollution so created by these processes, is divulge in a public forum, with a high degree of transparency.
Alas, in this modern age, some degree of hazardous waste is going to be produced as a matter of course in many different enterprises, of which, the goal of responsible governance is not to eliminate all hazardous waste, no matter the cost, but to come to a prudent meeting of the minds, that deals with such in a forthright and responsible fashion, and takes into proper account the benefits of that which is being produced, in comparison to the hazardous waste so created, amongst other salient factors. While the United States has plenty of rules and regulations, and agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deal with this sort of thing -- such is only going to be as effective as those rules and regulations along with the EPA have real bite and impact upon those relevant industries, as opposed to not having enough resources, or of having been compromised through the "revolving door" of corporate and government entities, changing hats, far too frequently.
The main issue with today's world is the fact that dangerous pollution can be created at an unprecedented scale, of which, some industries, have made a conscious decision to hide such pollution from authorities in an exceedingly skillful and underhanded methodology. This is why when penalties are structured for those companies that have evaded and created hazardous waste in which they have taken extraordinary means to disguise and to circumvent prudent environmental controls and standards, should, as a matter of course, be dealt with in a manner in which there are punitive damages associated to such. In other words, as bad as it is when hazardous waste is produced, by any enterprise, those companies that have done so but do own up to it, should be dealt with differently than those companies, that have made it their point to be deceptive, misleading, and duplicitous.
This country and the people that make up it, are entitled to the fair disclosure of the processing methods so needed in order to produce and to manufacture goods, of which, those industries, that clearly by the nature of such, will create some sort of hazardous waste, need to have a strict protocol in place to deal prudently with that hazardous waste, along with setting aside an appropriate amount of money as a monetary surety that this hazardous waste will not at some future point, become the responsibility of that government and its people, thereby allowing those corporate malefactors to escape with the profits from such but none of the burden for the polluted residue so left behind.