Perhaps if the industry had been allowed to develop, we'd have some freaky ass new and innovative tech that would've abated the problem. The world may never know!
So basically "if they were only allowed to cause harm then maybe maybe one day they might have found a way to on their own for no profit stop doing that harm"? Yeah, no thank you. Also, all of corporate history shows that without a government or public pushback "will stop doing harm" never happens.
The industry was allowed to develop, but not allowed to cause harm.
Substitute develop with innovate and perhaps the thrust of my comment becomes more clear?
My reply still works when s/develop/innovate/. Companies were (and are) allowed to innovate in order to solve the blocking problems around supersonic flight. They just weren't allowed to ignore those blocking problems.