The city also doesn't read my meter monthly, but yearly. It just estimates it from month to month. So about once a year I get a huge, insane bill for about 3 times my monthly bill. OTOH they only bill me for the water when they do that so technically I'm getting sewer for 'free' during the year.
For some industries this already exists in the form of the regulation of emissions. If you're capping an industries carbon output into atmosphere what you are really capping is the mass of oxygen they can consume from the atmosphere. If you do the thermodynamic analysis of it, you're basically putting a cap on the amount of energy that a business can acquire from using the atmosphere. Most industries run 24/7, so it is really easy to calculate how much oxygen they'll use each year and how much carbon they'll emit into the atmosphere.
It isn't so easy for individuals and smaller businesses. For example, I own a generator that uses oxygen from the atmosphere to get electrical energy. However, I only use it for a tiny fraction of each year.
Agricultural interests with senior water rights have a legal right to a much greater amount of water at much lower cost. Those with riparian rights (upstream) have the right to take as much water as they can use.
There are hundreds of reasons why it's not as simple as "turn this knob to raise price".