Granted, without the price controls we would have had higher prices instead.

TSF is exactly dumb enough to give price controls another go. More fun.

He was long out of office by 1979.

...when Carter phased them out.

I remember many Americans buying large gas-guzzling cars in the 1970s, in defiance of that era's version of "woke." When the oil embargo hit we were sitting ducks.

But it was a complex set of interacting issues. I don't know how predictive 1979 is to today.

It’s just a matter of price. We aren’t short of oil or fuel.

The US dynamic on oil changed with the invention of fracking. Producers may have exported cargos then but as a convenience to price. We were still a large buyer. We started producing enough to be a net exporter of combined petroleum products in 2019.

Part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. With some exceptions, it prohibited exporting US production. That changed with the fracking boom and the ban was lifted in 2015. Shortly after, the US became the biggest oil exporter on the planet, surpassing Saudi.

But we do import a vast amount still, the bulk coming from Canada. The biggest exporter of crude imports vast amounts? It's complicated and all crude isn't equal. Much depends on type, the economics of distance, deals with producers, refining setup. The US produces (fracking) vast amounts of light sweet crude. Low sulfur content, lighter density, and easier to refine. But much of our refining capacity isn't geared to process light sweet since we've been importing the heavy stuff from Canada, Mexico, Colombia and once again - Venezuela, for a very long time. Changing that refining infrastructure takes years and billions in investment. Hasn't been economically viable.

Since this isn't the 70's and much has changed since, it's doubtful we'll see gasoline shortages at least short term. Other grades like diesel and jet fuel are debatable. If this drags out for months it's going to get really interesting as many complicated threads realign to a new reality. Even if it ended today, Gulf storage capacity is pretty well maxed, and you don't just turn oil production off like a light switch. That's complex, risky and takes a lot of time to reverse. Plus potential damage to oil fields. Plus the damage to Gulf infrastructure above ground. Plus getting all those tankers in the right places at the right time. As we learned from covid, leaned out import / export is a highly complex, choreographed dance and can take months to years to get back in sync.

So...gas lines in the US again? As Zen Master says...we'll see. Not tomorrow, but 3 months from now? We'll see.

Are paying very high rates (leaving US consumers with higher prices for gas), the US has remained a net CRUDE importer throughout this fracking boom. We've generally been exporting about 4.5M barrels a day, and importing about 5.5M barrels a day until like 2 weeks ago.

An addendum to your post there is that the main reason for the imports is that the oil being produced by VZ, Canada, and Mexico is much closer in nature (sour, heavy) to the oil that most of the US (including Alaska) was producing prior to the fracking boom, and a great many of our refineries were never retooled to process the (sweet, light WTI) oil produced by the frackers. So we still import MORE (heavy, sour) than we export (light, sweet) when it comes to crude.

Again until like 2 weeks ago, when the WTI producers sold a shit-ton of it to the rest of the world, to the point that exports finally exceeded imports. US oil inventories, in net, fell drastically as a result, and that is part of why US prices have shot up so much the past couple of weeks.

Because we are pulling out of the reserves for export. This is in an attempt to temper gasoline prices and keep the world supplied. When you look at oil + petroleum products we are a net exporter. We import for mix to get more heavies, mix to get cheaper oil ( Canada and Venezuela heavy sour is ~20% discounted, and logistics). We could conceptually shut all of the exports off, except the Canadian exchange and bring the Venezuela oil and be just fine. Light crude looses efficiency in a gulf heavy refinery but you can still run it. Diesel would have lower output and the heavies for things like tars and asphalt.

We are exporting from the refinery’s including diesel to support Europe and exporting Oil. We don’t have a shortage of gas or diesel. It’s just pricing.

Probably in TSF's playbook somewhere. I don't think it's a good idea.

Place like EU. We have increased those exports due to the situation and increased exports of refinery products. We aren’t looking to cut exports.

This is different.

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Qatar, Algeria, and Egypt.

Or walk. Wouldn't be a fun vacation that way,

New York to Portland via sailing canoe rig (Hudson River, to Great Lakes, down the Mississippi to where you catch up with the original trip route), once you get to Portland, take the Amtrak to Seattle...
Or maybe just take the Amtrak to Seattle if you have 4 days each way and about $1600 for the round trip...

Was awesome and would do again.

That said, I flew home on Alaskan for the return leg

I top off frequently. Like every time I get down to 3/4 full.