[npongratz]

So the value add is to artificially add a cost to one form of energy production to make it cost more than another form? That does not sound like a "value add", but rather a simple "cost add," with government agents making the demands and meting out financial (and eventually, physical) punishment for non-compliance.

And we really want to add complexity and inconvenience to 2/3rds of households just so they can get their money back?

[jaggederest]

It's called a pigovian tax, and it's widely considered the most efficient way to deal with these kinds of negative externalities.

For most lower income households, they would actually be receiving a net increase in their income, since they emit less than the mean carbon output.

[dontreact]

Burning fossil fuels has a real cost to everyone which is not priced appropriately by the free market (this is a well known economic effect known as a negative externality). This tax corrects for the artificially low costs.