One way or another, the cost of 'fillin' er up' is born by the schlub standing at the pump with the nozzle in his hands.

That's probably not the case. As has been pointed out by Democrats repeatedly in criticizing Trump's tariff policies, consumers bear a larger proportion of costs when they are imposed on consumer products.

This is why subsidies are usually very popular, and excise taxes and other product-specific charges are very unpopular. The U.S. federal income tax is fairly progressive, and the "schlub" standing at the pump bears a relatively low proportion of the cost of things like the military budget - or green energy subsidies. Efforts to internalize the externalities of fossil fuels, however, are more directly borne by the consumers of those fossil fuels (which is entirely the point). As would be the economic burdens of removing whatever direct subsidies exist for fossil fuels, though those are much smaller - you don't get to $5-10 gas by taking out tax code bennies, which only amount to $10-20 billion per year in the U.S. for oil.

So if the uncharged extra "cost" of fillin' er up is an additional $5 per gallon, that's going to be mostly borne by the people other than the schlub at the pump; if you move the cost to the 'schlub' at the pump, he's going to end up paying a vastly higher proportion of it. The same is true of subsidies - the reason why subsidies actually end up spurring consumption is because a smaller proportion of the cost is borne by the consumer than the public at large.