> If a business externalizes the cost, does it matter to them?

I mean, yes? Maybe not before next quarter's revenue statement, but eventually it will have to start to matter?

If your dog goes and craps in the yard every day, you eventually have to clean it up or you will get flies in the yard, and if you have to open the door or leave the house at all then sooner or later you will have flies in the house, it matters, yes. It's really not any more complicated than that.

If you are responsible for dumping toxic waste out the back door of your factory, it's only a matter of time before it's in your drinking water at your house, a couple of miles down the road. Externalizing a problem doesn't really get rid of it, just makes it someone else's problem (for now at least.) Those other people are real people, and they will find you.

But if you're a monopoly (a competing pipeline isn't likely to spring into existence any time soon) and the courts aren't inclined to impose particularly harsh penalties, business as usual will remain your optimal moneymaking strategy.