"Carbon taxes [should be] structured and sold as an income tax rebate, paid for by fees levied on extraction or imports of carbon. To avoid economic disruptions, these fees should be phased in. It is a simple exercise to set escalating annual targets for the total of carbon fees collected and to design the fee system so that it hits these targets. It would then require only simple arithmetic and policy decisions to determine the rebates that would be received by taxpayers in various tax brackets. This is not smoke and mirrors. Who would support any tax or fee without knowing what it would be used for? To build popular support for this concept, it would be powerful to present this simple rebate approach and resist the temptation to use the carbon fees to subsidize alternative energy and transportation solutions. The beauty of carbon fees is that they inevitably will lead us to these solutions, without the government having to assume the role of the market's orchestra leader."

Letter to the Editor by Peter Werwath, The Washington Post, August 7 2007.