Well, other than the fact that you are oversimplifying a complex issue, I don't necessarily think you are wrong. But just to address some of the possible extern

Well, other than the fact that you are oversimplifying a complex issue, I don't necessarily think you are wrong. But just to address some of the possible externalities that would have to be considered: 1. Not all oil that comes into the US is in the form of barrels of crude oil. It may come in refined (a small amount, I assume, considering the oversupply of refineries in the US). But more likely it comes in as part of an imported product. 2. Which leads to the problem we already have: if oil is expensive in the US, that further incentivizes moving to where it is not expensive. Instead of buying your expensive fertilizers to grow food in the US, why not grow more crops in Mexico or Canada and import them? 3. Or perhaps oil is a part of the manufacturing process (i.e. plastics). Now it's all of a sudden even cheaper to manufacture outside of the US. Of course, you also have the complicated problem of recycled materials as well. 4. Or it's part of the shipping process. I'm not sure how you even tax this. All these problems need to be managed. We would need to address figuring out how much oil goes into any one thing we consume. We need to address free trade agreements (can we charge duty on a product depending on how much oil was used to make it, ship it or grow it?). We would need to provide incentives to recycling, manufacturing, organic agriculture, etc. etc. It's not that these aren't problems we should try to solve, it's just that "presto, 7B of income a year" is not what will happen.