In a market economy, market failures occasionally arise. A nationwide carbon fee corrects the market’s failure to account for the environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions accumulating in the atmosphere. By sending price signals throughout the economy, it lets the market and consumers, rather than the government, decide on the best ways to decarbonize. Furthermore, low-carbon investments are made by the private sector, not government. In this way, it starts a race to develop the next generation of clean technologies, without giving preference to any particular technology: all are on an equal footing to compete to serve our low-carbon future. Finally, this approach preserves government resources for other priorities and doesn’t grow the federal deficit.