Right, but now you're talking about adding the tax to the whole economy, not just car fuel?
That's close to impossible to implement. You'd need to track production and usage of everything in an extreme detail. Plus tracking all purchases (items + services) to a given person. So complete state surveillance of citizens. Globally.
> That's close to impossible to implement.
For a carbon tax, I think you only need to track imports, and domestic extraction of coal, petroleum, and natural gas.
„Only” track imports?
I think customs already tracks this. Smuggling oil and coal into the US at any meaningful scale seems very unlikely.
Tax all fuel. So those energy consumption of wealthy cost more?
Ok, let's assume you do. Let's tax all fuels 300% in the US. Now all manufacturing stops as your production costs are all over the roof. Everything is imported from countries that do not have these taxes.
What problem was solved here? None.
> Everything is imported from countries that do not have these taxes.
Finally a good use for tariffs!