Only Congress can do the plan

(Dallas and Karen, “Implementing a US Carbon Tax: Challenges and Debates”, pp191-211, Routledge)

This may also explain the coexistence of a carbon price (below its efficient level) and other energy policies even when those other policies are less environmentally effective. Third, as noted above, concerns about impacts on the overall economy or com-petitiveness may be another reason why the tax level might be insufficient from an environmental perspective, or applied unevenly across the economy. One reason might be to lessen the loss of economic activity associated with introducing a new tax on top of already existing taxes. However, these concerns can be at least partly addressed through using some of the carbon tax revenues to lower tax burdens elsewhere in the economy, or use of additional measures to help energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries (see Chapter 9). Fourth, the mental model illustrated in Figure 11.1 also assumes that the carbon price would automatically be adjusted to assimilate new scientific information. However, it is hard to imagine how this would occur, since the tax level and per-haps a time path for automatic annual adjustments is established by congressional action and revisiting the technical basis for this legislative decision might be just as fraught or flawed as the initial implementation of a tax. One approach to assimilat-ing new information might be to delegate authority to adjust the carbon tax to an expert agency such as EPA (Fraas and Richardson 2013; Burtraw 2013). However, the authority to tax is the exclusive domain of Congress, and this is one power the legislative branch guards jealously and rarely delegates. In sum, economic theory tells us that a carbon tax is a relatively efficient instru-ment. However, an efficient instrument does not guarantee an efficient policy. The outcome depends on how the instrument is used, and that depends importantly on the institutional context for policymaking. The implementation of a carbon price seems likely to be imperfect suggesting a potential role for other policies to help mitigate carbon emissions.