⚡ Externality Limiter · Climate

Carbon fee revenue — rebated, then invested.

A predictable, escalating carbon fee starting at $80/ton and rising $30 per year — with the Energy Stipend rebating the equivalent of $160/ton per capita via your FedCard. Revenue from fees above $160/ton funds the Climate Adaptation Trust.

$80 → $680/ton
Fee trajectory
Predictable 25-year schedule
$160/ton
Rebate cap (per capita)
Equal Energy Stipend via FedCard
Above $160/ton
Climate Adaptation Trust
Ring-fenced; sized to mitigation cost
Externality LimiterCarbonClimate Adaptation TrustTwo-Ledger Principle200-year vizProject scheduleFinancial StabilityTransportation
Mechanism

How the Carbon Fee Works

Four steps, zero complexity for households.

Fossil Fuel Producers
Pay fee upstream
US Treasury
Collects all revenue
Equal Rebate
Per-capita division
Your FedCard
Monthly deposit
Adaptation

Climate Adaptation Trust

Ring-fenced carbon-above-rebate + Methane Accountability and Reduction Levy revenue. Expert-Panel-directed. Self-liquidating.

Carbon revenue above the $160/ton household rebate cap, together with Methane Accountability and Reduction Levy receipts routed per statute, flows into the ring-fenced Climate Adaptation Trust administered by the Expert Panel on Climate Resilience (EPCR) with FEMA, Army Corps, and EPA co-governance. Trust assets are held in special-issue Treasury securities during the accumulation phase; interest savings accrue to the General Fund.

The Trust’s peak balance is not a fixed appropriation target. It is a function of EPCR project-selection pace and the infrastructure-workforce capacity available to execute the highest-ROI adaptation projects; during the first decade the Trust functions largely as a cash reserve while capacity ramps. Self-liquidates through 2089 as emissions fall toward zero.

Indicative allocation shares
⚡
Utility Undergrounding
~25%

Burying power lines in wildfire and hurricane corridors. Eliminates 85% of weather-related outages in treated areas.

🏠
Flood Zone Transition
~20%

NFIP reform: federal flood insurance rises to actuarial market rates — pricing the risk is the market force that produces orderly retreat from high-risk zones. Updated building codes preventing new construction in FEMA-designated flood zones; no-rebuild zones for repetitive-loss areas. No federal buyout program — property values adjust as subsidized insurance is removed.

🔧
Building Retrofit Rebates
~20%

Point-of-sale rebates for heat pumps, insulation, storm-hardening, and electrification. Targeted at low- and middle-income households first.

💧
Water Infrastructure
~15%

Desalination, aquifer recharge, reservoir expansion, and drought-resilient municipal systems in the arid West and overtapped Southeast.

🌲
Wildfire Fuel Management
~10%

Prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, and defensible-space enforcement across 80M acres of high-risk federal and state forestland.

🔬
Research & Reserve
~10%

Climate modeling, geoengineering research, novel materials, and a catastrophic-event reserve fund for Black Swan events.

Allocation shares are indicative. Actual year-by-year spending is set by EPCR against National Statistics Board-measured capacity metrics and the best available ROI estimates; the dollar level varies with carbon-fee revenue and executable project pipeline.

Second emission

Methane Accountability and Reduction Levy (MARL)

CH₄ priced separately from CO₂ because of its ~80× short-term warming potential and distinct source architecture.

Start rate
$1,200/ton CH₄
Annual escalator
+$240/yr
Ceiling (Year 16)
$2,880/ton
Three source categories
  • Fossil fuel venting & pipeline leakage. Satellite cross-check with 60-day response window before EPA back-bills at 2× reported rate.
  • Agricultural enteric fermentation. Per-head levy by species (beef feedlot ~$103/head Year 1; dairy ~$138). Stackable Feedstock Adjustment Credits reduce up to 75%: 3-NOP/Bovaer (−30%), Asparagopsis seaweed (−50%), rotational grazing (−10%), digesters (−80% on manure fraction).
  • Manure management. Assessed as a separate per-head increment on confinement operations; digester credit additive to the Carbon Fee biogas offset.
No double-counting with the Carbon Fee

Custody-transfer rule: gas that leaks before combustion is a Methane Accountability and Reduction Levy event; gas that reaches a burner tip is a Carbon Fee event. The Natural Methane Reconciliation protocol enforces this monthly. No molecule pays both. Intentional venting is charged at 5× the standard rate and is not creditable.

Revenue routing. Methane Accountability and Reduction Levy revenue (fossil + agricultural) flows to the Climate Adaptation Trust. Affected farmers may apply separately for transition grants — digester capital, feed-additive cost-share, breed-registry support — funded from the General Fund through standard appropriation, not as a fixed percentage carve-out of the levy.
Measurement

Ecological Solvency

Tracked through the Alliance Incentive scoring framework.

40
Current Ecological Solvency Score: 40 / 100

The US scores well on renewable capacity but poorly on grid resilience, wildfire preparedness, and water infrastructure. The Accord targets 75+ within 15 years.

IndicatorCurrentTargetInvestment Pathway
Carbon intensity (tCO2/GDP)0.240.08Carbon fee + grid decarbonization
Renewable share of generation22%65%Market signal from escalating fee
Grid resilience index4280Utility Undergrounding ($25B/yr)
Wildfire-managed acreage12M80MFuel Management ($10B/yr)
Water stress indexHighModerateWater Infrastructure ($15B/yr)
Repetitive-loss properties350K<50KFlood insurance phase-out + building code enforcement ($20B/yr)
Projection

Carbon Fee Revenue Trajectory

Revenue peaks as emissions decline — exactly as designed.

Revenue peaks around Year 10-12 as the fee rises faster than emissions fall, then declines as the economy decarbonizes. By Year 25, carbon revenue is a small fraction of GDP — mission accomplished.