Hmm, and de-regulation really helped out with that problem during the Enron era didn't it?

The article doesn't sound well thought out (which you do a nice job of pointing out), but the economics of keeping the environment clean do go beyond the expenses to businesses. Just as states give Walmart corporate welfare by subsidizing their underpaid workers through welfare programs, states subsidize polluting companies by paying (in this case in more of an aggregate mode) for the health care for all the people who have been made sick due to pollution. Economic efficiencies can alter depending on where you draw the line. If you draw the line at the individual company certain results happen, if you draw the line at the results in a large civilized and industrialized country, results may vary.

Perhaps you might consider moving to the midwest where we don't have such EV kooks, fires, earthquakes and extremist liberal to tell you how you should live.