Editors' Summary

Economists generally consider pollution taxes to be the gold standard of market-based instruments, while capand-trade systems are less effective and more complex to implement than pollution taxes. Therefore, following an economics argument, implementing a carbon tax in the United States will afford the best protection against climate change. However, significant impediments to introduction of a carbon tax in the United States exist. The most problematic of these, perhaps, is the United States' cultural aversion to taxes. Opportunities such as expiring tax provisions and recycling carbon tax revenues offer incentive to overcome such impediments to carbon tax implementation.