Coal mining is related to many externalities. At the same time, coal mining industry institutes in the affected regions besides negative environmental impacts one of the largest employers and contributors to local economy.  The Czech Republic has experienced a wide debate regarding the coal mining limits where different stakeholder groups tend to influence the government policy in two different directions. Environmentalists as well as some of the communities affected by coal mining emphasize the environmental impacts of coal mining and demand to maintain current ceiling on coal mining. The other group representing the heavy industry tries to push the mining limits up. The situation in mining industry in the Czech Republic is compared, in this paper, to agriculture in Prince Edward Island, smallest province in Canada by an optimal control model. Prince Edward Island (PEI) the "greenest" province of Canada has experienced in the last three decades increasing environmental pollution that is assumed to be caused by agriculture, largest and most important industry in PEI.  In this paper, an innovative approach is used that merges theoretical optimal control modeling with empirical simulation of a dynamic model. Time-series analysis is employed to test to what extent the environmental pollution is caused by the widely blamed industry. The use of optimal control theory provides a tool to analyze unique policy that aims at regulating production decisions of entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector of Prince Edward Island's economy and coal mining industry in the Czech Republic. It is argued that legislation to protect environment needs to be implemented. However, legislation, as enacted in PEI, is unlikely to be supported in the market based environment. International comparison of similar legislative measures is provided to verify whether  legislation that fixes prices can work in a stochastic environment. In case of the Czech Republic, it is argued that a similar situation may occur even though Czech mining industry enjoys a different reputation than agriculture in Prince Edward Island.