How about a "War on Energy"? We could harness underground atomic explosions and maybe monsters like Godzilla on treadmills to produce unlimited amounts of jobs for Beltway insiders. Or maybe use cosmic rays to tow dwarf stars into tractor orbits around the moon where they can be enclosed in safe housing and transmit effectively unlimited amounts of clean microwave energy directly into people's toasters? Firing off missiles in random directions will produce much more energy than anybody can reasonably use, even North Americans. It's a wonder CERA hasn't picked up this highly concentrated form of pure energy in its confabulations.

Seriously, anybody else wondering how the heck a trillion plus dollars can actually produce any real economic return? Doesn't EROEI have more general application? Pumping cash in won't produce much usable product out of a structurally deficient economy. The natural analogy is the war economy. Dig that hole, fill it with casualties and wreckage, then fill it up again. "WOE" is a natural extension of "drill, baby, drill". Its a gas, gas, gas...

What's the point of increasing a tax and then refunding an amount equal to the tax?

What's the point of having Social Security and the EITC?  It appears you understand neither.

Is the consumer to be given a fixed amount or an amount exactly equal to their individual tax? A fixed amount looks like a transfer or welfare payment for the poor, who wouldn't be expected to buy enough fuel to amount to the refund while the more well to do would pay more tax than their refund.

Ah, so you do get it!

Yes, a fixed amount would give a net surplus to people who use little fuel (which includes those with little income).  This would be a temporary measure which would vanish naturally over time as petroleum usage (the basis of the tax) shrank.  It would also serve to compensate for the initial flow of fuel-saving technology into the upper price segment of vehicles, which would take some years to filter down to both lower-priced new vehicles and the used-vehicle market.

After 20 years or so you could taper off the rebates and just use taxes as a disincentive to use petroleum, because relatively few people would be using much of it anyway.

It's all about choice here- you are being handed a choice. For some consumers, the net outcome would indeed leave them coming out the same. For some, they would come out worse, but in the end- it was their choice (or in the instance of a fast and harsh set of tax increases, their past choices of location etc.).

For people like myself, young, employed, peak oil aware and who did not make the plunge into the housing bubble, I am now given the choice of where to live relative to my work, and how I get there. Since I sold my car, cut my electricity usage by 2/3rds, and completely cut out my natural gas usage- the tax burden I have in my current tax bracket would be greatly decreased. Is it my fault that I had to take a well paying job to support my high debt level to pursue a good education to get my high paying job (Well, maybe =) I certainly don't see how there is a net benefit to society to put everyone into debt, just to pay higher taxes on their income when they are trying to pay off that debt- when they could be happier and more efficient in a lower paying more fulfilling position.
Tax consumption, and there should also be a war tax put into the constitution, including any conflict initiated at the behest of the President- it would certainly make us think twice, and balance our budget. (There are too many problems to list I could go on and on).