[WalterBright]

An example of why Carter was a terrible President. Remember the looong gas lines? I sure do. For years, just getting gas was a miserable experience with arbitrarily long waits, up to hours.

Reagan's first act was to sign an Executive Order eliminating all oil and gas price and allocation controls.

The gas lines vanished literally overnight (and I'm not exaggerating) and never returned. Boy do I remember that.

Carter could have done that. But he simply didn't understand economics.

Sadly, Biden is considering having the government control fuel distribution again.

[anigbrowl]

Do you indeed?

It was during the Nixon administration that price controls and rationing of gasoline were introduced, in response to the OPEC oil shock of 1973 (crude oil prices had been set by government since 1971). You mention Reagan's executive order, but that was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted; Carter began the phaseout of the Nixon-era price controls in 1979.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/06/archives/carter-to-end-pr...

[WalterBright]

"The President [Carter] said that he would set gasoline consumption targets for each state and would order mandatory steps, assuming Congress allows him to do so, if the states fail to save as much gasoline as they are supposed to do. One such step, he added, might be the weekend closing of service stations."

Gawd, what an awful proposal.

[WalterBright]

Carter dinked around for 4 years failing to get it done, and Reagan does it in a few minutes with the stroke of a pen.

All your article shows is Carter simply didn't understand the problem. Reagan did.

Not mentioned is the DOE also controlled allocation of gasoline to filling stations. That was quite a disaster. Reagan ended all that nonsense with the same EO.

Isn't it interesting that Biden is going down the same path? He'll fail just like Carter.

[anigbrowl]

You placed all the blame for gas lines and price controls on Carter, when it was a policy imposed by Nixon and continued by Ford. Then you complain about Carter 'dinking around' because he opted to work with Congress and stick to the goal of trying to balance the federal budget. Many of the price controls had been dismantled by the time Reagan took office.

I might observe that Carter's 'dinking around' also reduced the federal government's budget deficit, which increased sharply under the Reagan & Bush administrations, along with the national debt.

[WalterBright]

When you're the President, you own it and it's your fault.

Let's go back to what happened - Carter didn't fix it in 4 years. Reagan did overnight as his first action. Reagan gets the credit.

Read also Carter's policy proposals for energy. All terrible, just like Biden's.

[opo]

The 79 oil crisis and rationing was caused by the disruption of oil from the Iran, but the US suffered much more from the disruption of the oil from Iran than other countries that also relied on this oil. It would be wrong to ignore the role the government played in making this oil disruption significantly worse.

From "TheU.S. Petroleum Crisis of 1979", PHILIP K. VERLEGER, JR.

>...On February 28, 1979, DOE published the following notice in the Federal Register: "It is essential that refiners enter the spring driving season with adequate gasoline stocks to meet seasonal demand requirements. We recognize that gasoline stocks are currently at adequate levels for this time of year, which is usually a period of low demand. Recent industry data indicate that total stocks are now in excess of 265 million barrels, which is less than last year's record high levels during the same period but above the average levels of previous years. Our concern is that these stocks not be drawn down precipitously as soon as the impacts of the Iranian shortfall are felt by refiners. Refiners are urged to keep stocks high enough to meet expected demand during the 1979 summer driving season, even if it is necessary to restrict somewhat the amount of surplus gasoline that is made available to purchasers currently" The implementation of these instructions had the effect of restricting the volume of gasoline available to service stations to between 80 and 90 percent of 1978 levels. This reduction was greater than the reduction in total gasoline supplies.

>...In April 1979, DOE ordered the fifteen largest refiners to sell 7.8 million barrels of crude oil to smaller firms that were unable to obtain supplies on the world market at competitive prices. …These transfers probably reduced the volume of gasoline produced in the second quarter because the refineries that purchased the crude oil had only a limited capacity to produce gasoline, while the refineries that sold it could have produced more. ...In addition to reducing the supply of gasoline, the buy/sell program appears to have affected the geographic distribution of crude oil and gasoline. This is because the primary recipients of the crude oil were refineries in the Midwest and the gulf coast areas, while the sellers were companies that were marketing throughout the nation.

>...…In April, DOE turned its attention to the low stock of distillate fuel oil … Two impacts were observed on domestic markets. First, excessive stocks of heating oil were accumulated. Second, companies may have been influenced to increase gasoline stocks in anticipation of the mandator yield controls that DOE threatened to impose. These controls specified the percent of refiner output that had to be heating oil. Such controls were designed to curtail the output of gasoline. By building higher gasoline inventories, refiners could smooth out the month-to-month distribution of gasoline despite the controls.

>...Price controls on gasoline may have also created an incentive to withhold gasoline from the market when the prices of crude oil were rising rapidly. …In summary, the refiners had the capacity and the knowledge to take advantage of this opportunity. Ironically, the instructions from DOE to the companies were to do precisely what was most profitable.

>...In addition to encouraging the buildup of stocks, DOE may have added to the shortages by creating an incentive to reduce the output of crude oil. Although it is difficult to estimate what domestic supplies of crude oil might have been in the absence of any restriction, a DOE announcement in November that control levels of the base period were to be reviewed may have constrained production in the first half of 1979.

[WalterBright]

Nobody ever seems to remember that the DOE also allocated gas to gas stations on a per-station basis. This was complete madness, as it did so based on the previous year's usage patterns. Of course, patterns never repeat themselves very accurately, and the result was gluts in Florida and shortages on the left coast.

A gas station had to apply to the DOE to get gas, and write a paper justifying this. I know this because a friend bought a gas station. He couldn't get a DOE allocation because the gas station across the street filed an objection with the DOE that no gas was needed for the new owner. So his gas station sat with no gas for 6 months or so.

That's Carter's energy policy. Well meaning, but completely wrong.

[anigbrowl]

This is a much more substantive analysis, thanks.

[ggm]

Without going full conspiracy, is there any chance this was a pre Koch brothers example of industry undermining government authority until it gets the government it wants?

[WalterBright]

If Carter was making bad decisions because Koch told him to, then that still makes Carter a bad President.

[ggm]

Firstly, The Koch brothers are fiercely republican and were not making decisions through Carter. Secondly, I said pre-Koch.

Btw, the oil price controls were a Nixon initiative, continued by Ford. Carter did not invent them, he just didn't remove them.

Reagan was the beneficiary of the collapse of the OPEC price war internationally.

[WalterBright]

Funny how the OPEC price war collapsed the day Reagan took office and repealed those damned price and allocation controls.

Something Carter could have done at any time. But he didn't. Reagan did.

> he just didn't remove them

That's right, for 4 years he didn't. He gets the blame for it for those 4 years.

[Barracoon]

I’m trying to square how only [15% of oil price controls](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/29/us/president-abolishes-la...) remained when Reagan single handedly saved the day. Seems like Carter spent 4 years doing the hard work and Reagan was able to capitalize on the last bit, which as the article states, Carter would have accomplished by spring.

[WalterBright]

But Carter did not do it. You don't get credit for things you didn't do. There was no need for delay, as Reagan amply demonstrated.

Remember, Reagan did it on his first day in office. Carter could have done it the day before.

If you lived through that transition (I did) it was wonderful to have the gas lines disappear overnight and never return. Thank you, Reagan!