Control over SO2 pollution

Above figure shows the sources of sulfur dioxide emissions in the U.S. according to year 2002.

The sulfides and nitration emissions from factories that being emitted to the air cause acid rains, which largely reduced our ambient quality and bring out serious problems. Acid rain is a kind of rain that has smaller PH value (the PH of salt is 7). When filtering into ground, acid rain will lower soil-productivity; moreover, acid rain cankers buildings and plants. From the year of 1980, the U.S. government and the EPA have worked to find out ways to control acid rain problem; one way to achieve is to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from industries and transportations. During the pass twenty years, the PH value has risen 0.2 all over the state.
See information about Clean Air Act.
However, as the case we learned in class, I’m wondering how did EPA set standards for all types of resources. It’s obviously that the institution wants to use the most easy and straightforward way, but it doesn’t take the equimarginal principle into consideration. Therefore, did it increase the social cost by, for example, letting factories install technologies that cost huge amount of money? Also, did it decrease individual potentials for research and development? I believe the answers are “Yes;” further, at the social level, every single type of policies needs the action of monitoring, which diminish our marginal profit. My concern is if we could find a better way using moral appeal to deal with the environmental problems (although it seems not very practical now in a highly capitalized world).