> I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared.

Do you have any basis for that? I think most people care about clean air and support laws and regulations to protect it. The laws did pass; there are regulatory agencies that are funded.

Most people care, unless it means they drive or fly less.

You'd think the lack of popularity of diesel would have the opposite effect. If, like the EU, there had been a lot of institutional support for diesel then you can imagine them having issues dealing with evidence that it's causing a different kind of pollution. But in America you'd hope they'd not have enough political capital and the truth would be accepted.

Fair enough. 590K diesel vehicles is a niche of the US market that's almost invisible.

So have VW purchase back every one of those cars at MSRP. It's an invisible amount anyway, right? The largest auto maker in the world could do it without blinking, right?

Then fine them a few $billion for damage to the environment, jail a handful of employees, and we can move on.

It isn't their job to care. The job of a citizen is to elect officials to act in his or her (the citizen's) best interest. Another way of looking at it: regulations are a noisy approximation of how much people "care".

So citizens that don't care are supposed to elect people that do. As if somehow, by adding an additional layer of separation and lack of liability, you're somehow going to get a better result. It's no surprise how often that fails.