Robert Bradley
Jimmy Carter’s term as U. S. President (1977–1981) included major deregulation with airlines, motor carriers, and railroads. Other advances were scored in communications, tax policy, and regulatory budgeting. But the “great deregulator” had a very different approach with energy, which (along with inflation) defined his economic infamy.
Carter began wellhead deregulation of petroleum and natural gas—but with a Windfall Profit Tax for crude oil and intrastate regulation for gas. Carter’s basic mindset was oriented toward the federal planning of supply and demand, outlined in the National Energy Plan of 1977. The visible hand of government, not the invisible hand of markets, was to be controlling.
What Was the Problem?
The energy crisis in Carter’s time was blamed on the irreversible, worsening depletion of oil and gas. Physical fixity meant an increasing cost of extraction, hence the problems of supply and price. The “economics of exhaustible resources” was mainstream fare in the textbooks and journals, spawning a new subdiscipline, energy economics. The engineering mind of the 39th President was determined to overcome a perceived limit to growth.
Oil shortages in 1972–74, and natural gas curtailments in the winters of 1971/72 and 1976/77, had set the stage. To Carter, and his energy czar James Schlesinger, [1] crude oil and natural gas had to be replaced by super-abundant coal, synthetic oil and gas from coal (synfuels), and supplemented by renewable energies. (Nuclear, never embraced, was completely off the table with the Three Mile Island incident in March 1979.)
On the demand side, less energy had to be consumed in transportation, industry, and power generation, not to mention in homes and businesses.
Major new legislation—interpreted in many thousands of Federal Register pages—empowered the newborn U.S. Department of Energy (1977). The new laws (in 1978) were the National Energy Conservation Policy Act; Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act; Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act; Energy Tax Act; and Natural Gas Policy Act.
And in 1980: the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation Act; Biomass Energy and Alcohol Fuels Act; Renewable Energy Resources Act; Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Act; Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank Act; Geothermal Energy Act; and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act.
Planning, More Planning
The National Energy Plan of 1977 stated, “neither Government policy nor market incentives can improve on nature.” [2] While recognizing the perverse effects of price ceilings on supply and demand, Carter blamed foreign political control by OPEC for his activism (“there was no free market or effective competitive forces relating to world oil supplies and price,” he stated in his memoirs). [3]
These false rationales resulted in a regulatory experience that was frustrating, wasteful, even bizarre. A new term, gapism, described the multitude of government programs passed to synthetically increase supply and reduce demand, given “disequilibrium” under price controls. “One can only conjecture that many gapologists do not really appreciate the fact that at higher prices consumers really do buy less and producers offer more,” observed Edward J. Mitchell, “or that they believe these tendencies are so weak that only astronomical prices will eliminate gaps.” [4]
The Economists Error
Experts, academics, and planners were all-in with the fixity-depletion premise of Carter energy policy. Forgotten or ignored was Scarcity and Growth: The Economics of Resource Availability (1963), which challenged depletionism and credited “man’s ingenuity and wisdom” with “increasing, not diminishing, returns.” [5]
“There has been a certain tendency to regard technological advance as a chancy phenomenon, a bit of luck that is sure to run out sooner or later (with the ever-present implication that it will be sooner),” explained Harold J. Barnett and Chandler Morse. [6] But data suggested otherwise. “Every cost-reducing innovation opens up possibilities of application in so many new directions that the stock of knowledge, far from being depleted by new developments, may even expand geometrically.” [7]
It would take a contrarian, Julian Simon, to resurrect Barnett-Morse’s “great 1963 book” in the Carter era. [8] And in the 1980s, with energy prices decontrolled, the resource optimists would win the debate. Energy economics was just economics, after all. And less dismal.
Conclusion
Jimmy Carter was apparently well-intentioned in choosing the bureaucratic means to provide reliable and affordable energy for Americans. But he could have ended the energy crisis quickly and simply with an opposite public policy.
Carter was under the sway of false theories about what human ingenuity could accomplish in a free market, with or without major negative foreign policy events. Those false ideas had resounding negative consequences. The energy lessons of the 1970s should not be forgotten.
[1] “Schlesinger’s views on national economic policy were closer to French indicative planning than to the invisible hand ….” James L. Cochrane, “Carter Energy Policy and the Ninety-fifth Congress.” In Energy Policy in Perspective, Craufurd D. Goodwin, ed. (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1981), p. 553.
[2] Executive Office of the President, Energy Policy and Planning Office, The National Energy Plan (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), p. xiii.
[3] Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), p. 94. In a 1977 address to the nation, Carter used the memorable phrase “the moral equivalent of war” to describe America’s challenge against OPEC and oil imports in general.
[4] Edward J. Mitchell, U.S. Energy Policy: A Primer (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1974), pp. 20–21.
[5] Harold J. Barnett and Chandler Morse, Scarcity and Growth: The Economics of Natural Resource Availability (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, for Resources for the Future, 1963), pp. 3, 8.
[6] Barnett and Morse, Scarcity and Growth, p. 235.
[7] Barnett and Morse, Scarcity and Growth, p. 236.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My grad study in Chemical Engineering (’82-’84) was funded by DOE. I worked on chemical process computer simulation. The hope was “synthetic” fuels would be our salvation. A sincere thanks to Jimmy for the opportunity.
Of course, having the chemistry and thermodynamics basics down, I struggled with the irony (building bespoke fuels is VERY energy inefficient) even then.
Now, when advocates say “wind power sufficient to power a bajillion homes”, I get the same angst. Its NOT sufficient without back up. You know the story, unicorn fart batteries for that, not coal or gas.
My experiences started in the 70s. Thermodynamics. Electrical Engineering. Thermal (steam turbine) electricity generation and power systems. And so on and so on.
I am a battery subject matter expert (SME) for nigh on 50 years and for a decade or so was listed as a national SME.
I took modelling and simulation classes. I have coded software models. I use models and simulators to this day. I understand the strengths and weaknesses of both. In modelling, the creed is find and challenge the assumptions.
I expanded into Systems Engineering (a position I enjoy and still hold). Verification is everything is the creed. My ability to address comprehensive analysis of alternatives gets me invited into failure reviews on a near annual basis with government agencies calling on me to assist.
With all this vast grey beard experience, I am almost on a daily basis uttering a WTF! over the climate crisis noise.
We are spirit teammates in this arena.
I too was idealistic and was going to save the world when I achieved my masters in mechanical and energy engineering in 1981. Now I see the light and sorrowfully shake my head when I see the governmental responses to the “Climate Crises”. Gas stoves, heat pumps and on and on.
thanks for the reminder.
Ethanol got a big start during the carter administration due to the need (or perceived need) for a fuel other than gasoline due to the risk of the Arab control of the largest supply of oil and gas reserves. Everyone knew it was less efficient, though there was a need for an alternative fuel.
I think the Ethanol story is at least worthy of debate, since it still involves the “miracle” of photosynthesis.
One thing I recall from the Carter years is the speed limit.
c. 55-mph speed limit (administrative): The President has requested that the national 55-mph speed limit be vigorously enforced by States and municipalities. The Secretary of Transportation may, if he finds it necessary, withhold highway trust fund revenues from States not enforcing the limit.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet-the-presidents-national-energy-program
In a country that big that’s quite pedestrian. Having experienced the autobahn…
In NY State, the powers were more than happy to use the State Police to generate revenue by ticketing anybody who drove more than 61 mph. In your locality, you knew where all the hiding places were, but driving throughout the state was expensive!
I remember the 55mph speed limit very well.
At midnight, the speed limit changed from 65mph to 55mph, supposedly to save gasoline.
The next morning was a Sunday morning, and I was driving to my work assignment just as the sun was coming up, and there wasn’t a car in sight in any direction.
I was driving at 65mph and drove over the Arkansas River Bridge and as I got about halfway across the bridge, I saw an Oklahoma Highway Patrol car coming across the bridge going the other way.
The Highway Patrolman had to go about two miles down the road to find a point to turn around, but that’s exactly what he did, and he chased me down, and wrote me a traffic ticket for speeding! Not a warming, a ticket, which cost me about $150. No slack for the speed limit having just been changed just a few hours before. And the judge gave me no slack for that being my first traffic ticket in my life.
That’s life, I guess. 🙂
I remember when a stake was finally put through the heart of the stupid 55 mph national speed limit. Some states continued to cling to the 55 mph limit, PA being a noted holdout close to where I lived.
Big billboards were erected to proudly claim “Pennsylvania’s Maximum Speed Limit is STILL 55 Miles Per Hour” and, as always, they had other signs showing a silhouette of a State Trooper blowing his bugle (was that a even a thing?) with a list of how many mph over the speed limit you were going and the fine you would have to pay for each increment. The old joke, as you passed those signs, was “I can afford that.”
I recall vividly taking a long trip out west in 1995. When I went west, after having gone through 55mph PA, I thoroughly enjoyed getting through it to other States with more reasonable speed limits of 65 mph or 70 mph. When I was coming back east, I prepared myself for the inevitable and unnecessary reduction in speed as I approached the PA border, but then the stars were aligned, the Sun shined a little brighter, and a big smile emerged on my face. Sometime between when I left and when I returned, PA ceased to be a “speed revenuer” State – the obnoxious signs were gone, and their speed limit was increased to 65 mph!
And all was right with the world. I continued to drive at 70 mph, just like when it was 55, but with less fear of being persecuted for it.
Thermodynamically, not a very bright idea. Most trucks were geared for a sweet spot at ~70 MPH. Also, the lower limit meant more trucks on the road to transport the same goods in the same timeframe. If you considered the energy and cost to manufacture operate those extra trucks it was costing energy not saving it.
My ancient and sadly missed 7-series BMW constantly displayed its fuel economy. It achieved its peak economy at 85mph on the flat.
Sammy Hagar would agree with you…
What Carter did not take into account was that US oil regulation via The Texas Railroad Commission was set up to deal with a glut of oil, not a scarcity. OPEC was good old fashioned mercantilism by mostly Arab countries complicated by the Cold War. “Nationalizing” foreign companies was excused by socialist politicians in the West, and cheered on by the USSR.
Carter was so consistently wrong on energy policy that entertaining various conspiracy theories as to his “real motivations” was plausible. My personal take is to default to “never assume conspiracy in anything adequately explained by stupidity”, attributed to several people.
With ‘stupidity’ you assume he took an obvious wrong path while another obvious one would be the right path.
I think it is easy in hindsight to point out the anomalies. At the time his path might have looked like the right one. I give him some leeway because i consider those days in the 70s the ‘alternative’ approach which took place not only in energy but overall. We now see the many potholes and unintended consequences of those views but i consider it rather facile to ignore the timeframe and to call him out on those consequences.
Again, it’s easy to judge after, way after the fact. It is the problem of history..
Retaining statist (socialist, fascist, whatever) control over oil prices was egregious, and his restrictions on nuclear energy were faculty lounge fantasy land notions of “setting a good example” on weapons proliferation.
Some notions are so stupid only intellectuals can accept them.
Carter was a nice fool.
Carter signed the bill legalizing home brewing. That was nice…
I’d disagree, simply because “price controls” don’t accomplish anything but creating scarcity. Left to market forces, higher prices would have encouraged additional oil and gas exploration, and as new additional supply entered the market, prices would have come back down.
And nobody would have had to sit in lines to fill their gas tanks, which just represented additional waste. Thankfully I wasn’t yet old enough to drive when that stupidity was going on.
Carter banned reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and essentially killed the breeder reactor program, those actions still apply today.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-3678/clinch-river-in-the-spotlight/ excerpt:
The veto message: The President said he based his objections to CRBR on three prongs—interference with nonproliferation goals, technical obsolescence, and unsound economics. The last two were the cornerstone arguments used by DOE Secretary James Schlesinger during Congressional hearings on the breeder. However, when a DOE official was asked why Schlesinger was not present when the veto message was made public, he replied that the whole issue is “overwhelmed” by nonproliferation concerns. Schlesinger did, however, favor the veto, he said.
All three points of contention were hotly debated during the prolonged Congressional hearings that preceded the drafting of the authorization legislation. Among his other reasons for vetoing the bill, the President cited limitations on storing spent fuel from foreign reactors. The limitation was thought to have been covered in the McClure amendment to the bill (after Sen. James McClure, R., Idaho), and it would give Congress a voice in determining the extent of the foreign-burned fuel storage program. McClure argued that our offer to store fuel burned abroad should not work to the detriment of the domestic fuel storage program.
All in can say for certain is Carter did not deserve his reputation as a nice man and he is no longer the worst president ever.
I can argue that there is too much recency bias in evaluating Carter (or Biden). Andrew Johnson mostly peed away the results of the Civil War. Wilson was a Lost Cause racist, and a protofascist domestically once he finally openly got involved in WWI. His handling of the end of the war was even worse, offending almost every country involved, and arguably leading to WWII.
‘Andrew Johnson mostly peed away the results of the Civil War.’
???
Mostly amnestying the Confederates, and overlooking The Black Codes. The failure to remind the rebels they did in fact lose led to their continued defiance.
Andrew Johnson was Lincoln’s worst mistake.
Maybe he should have just killed them all?
Another Lost Causer?
‘Another Lost Causer?’
???
No longer Worst president ever is highly disputed by leftists
2024 Axios poll has Biden as the 14th best president & Carter as 22nd best
2022 Seina poll of historians has biden as 14th best president & carter at 24
Is being a leftist a mental disease? Asking for a friend
“poll has Biden as the 14th best president”
Huh? That’s bizarre.
I saw a poll yesterday that showed 61 percent of those polled thought Biden was a failed president.
Lets be real it’s not his fault, they have to tell him every morning that he is the president and can you please sign these.
Yet that somehow beats 45-14=31 other presidents?
I worked in the synthetic fuels and products industry for 25 years starting in 1999. There was a massive push to convert abundant coal and NG resources into liquid fuels. This was and is still being done by Sasol in South Africa with over 70 years of experience.
In the Middle East, Qatar offered NG at $0.50/mmBtu to any company that would build a Gas-to-Liquids facility to use their excessive reserves as LNG was more expensive at that time. Shell and Sasol ultimately got the contracts and built 33,000 and 144,000 bbl/day plants making all types of hydrocarbon products including Shell GTL Base oil sued in so many of the Pennzoil and Quaker State products and advertised as such. I worked on both the fuel and lubricants products areas for Syntroleum and Marathon. Unfortunately, Marathon’s project was not selected by Qatar.
I moved on to work on coal and biomass gasification to produce the same fuels. The US has such abundant coal reserves that we could produce the fuel needs of the US for 400 years with the coal we have.
Then there are Natural Gas Hydrates (Clathrates) are rock solid forms of NG trapped in an ice matrix and located off the coast of most continents. The energy estimates are 10X the energy stored in oil reservoirs making this the future of energy for the world for centuries. We just have to overcome the engineering challenges of collecting this resource which are currently formidable, but doable.
The future is not renewables but there are things that make sense like waste to fuels via gasification/Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to liquid products.
Dr. Bob, I’d enjoy running into you and Sparta Nova at a party.
We’d bore the sh*t out of everybody else, though;-)
I enjoyed listening to Dr. Bob and a CARB scientist wrangle during a cocktail reception. If wasn’t fun for the CARB scientist.
Twu dat. LOL
Syntroleum. Now there is a name I have not heard in a long time. Too bad their Sweetwater project fell through.
Well, methane layer is renewable, in that methane in question is continuously produced from fish poop and suchlike.
But yes, the first issue in many places seemed to be actually transporting and using the stuff, that is growing a healthy methane infrastructure. Economy of size could help even odd sources (like biomethane from trash) become more viable, via both cheaper parts and experience. When it’s shaped by subsidies too much, bureaucracy finds a way to screw things up, like it was in UK.
Of course, if methane layer harvesting took off, we would see “tragedy of common”, the same bitching about Japanese harvesting too many resources that rightfully belong to the Seattliddles, etc.
So, the main problems with such things are never technical.
Good comment. I wonder what the rate of production of said methane is.
Has there been any pilot project to obtain methane from the clathrate (aka methane ice)?
BTW: “sued” should be “used”. After posting a comment, if you spot a typo, move the pointer to the lower right of the box, click on the gear wheel and follow the prompts. You have five minute window for making corrections.
Yeah I really wish that window wasn’t so short.
Even if it is 100 years or 50 years remaining reserves, that does not make an emergency crisis level conversion justifiable.
The unintended consequences (see CA) need to be thought through.
New technologies such as you presented, need to be researched and tested.
Older technologies, nuclear being one, need a fair assessment in the context of today’s grid and fuel supplies.
CO2 to methane, an MIT research project, needs to be explored. It creates methane using sunlight, a process similar to plant photosynthesis.
There are too many alternatives that are being ignored. What is going on with solar and wind and batteries stinks of collusion and corruption.
This is a good overview.
I would just like to interject a few points from my grad school days in resource economics and all the observations since then on politics and energy policy conduct (fail) since then. The books by Daniel Yergin are also helpful for context and energy policy history.
1) Context and cycles are important, just as in climate science. Prior to Carter you had the trade policy fight between domestic oil producers and the rising volumes of imported Saudi crude at lower costs. This trade fight accounted for the decade of the 60s in which energy consumption doubled in the U.S., but real prices remained largely flat. Domestic production was preferentially depleted during that period of great deals for industry and consumers and Vietnam War spenders. It takes about a decade of policy distortion to create a real mess for those who follow. That mess in the 70s and early 80s was the perfect storm of temporary oil depletion in the U.S., the Clean Air Act, and the Arab oil embargo. And the lead times involved in major offshore oil projects exceeds the patience of consumers and assigners of political fallout.
2) Power politics in the Party rules Presidents too. It was Party politics from the likes of Sen. Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio who set the boundaries for energy policy and the lack of timely deregulation. Meanwhile the rise of the Green New Dealers in Rep. Edward Markey added to the list of Carter’s own list of meaningless (dead-end) energy project distractions. Adding solar panels to the roof of the Whitehouse at a time when the cost per watt difference of very low panel efficiency and very high cost against market rates measured in tens of multiples instead of single digits today was a nod to the math-impaired utopians like Markey. And it was Markey who dispensed with the policy blame on the back end with the famous quote of “Who could have known?”.
3) Modelers are human and so are their models. Modelers contributed to the policy distortion toward the many uneconomic experiments by projecting resource depletion and related vulnerabilities as intractable outcomes of near-term decline. The models were only as good as what historical patterns of conventional discovery rates and incremental technical improvements and innovations could inform. Those models lacked the major technical leaps of fracking shale source beds of hydrocarbons with horizontal drilling in previously abandoned fields. Added leaps in knowledge occurred in offshore projects with pre-salt discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico and strata bound, non-trap oil in offshore Guyana wells. As for USGS models of global resources, ask the model if it knows anything in the absence of industry-provided inputs to begin with.
4) Some things never change, only the names get updated. No doubt cycles of perceived scarcity and abundance will replay, and political pundits will lay blame and credit on top of the longer cycles. Follow the money might be a better unified field theory of the political economy.
Thanks. I just learned that JC put solar on the roof of the Whitehouse 50 years ago.
I remember the gas wars in the 60s. Filled up a car at 13.9 cents per gallon.
Is there any evidence that «Carter did so an so» should be understood more literally that «Biden did so an so» or «Bush did so an so»?
Cater was well intended in everything he did, he was just wrong in almost every case. He didn’t believe in winning.
I think Jimmy Carter was an honest man.
I didn’t agree with everything he did but he wasn’t corrupt.
When many South Vietnamese were fleeing South Vietnam after the takeover by the north, many of these people were fleeing on any boat they could find and many were drowning and Jimmy Carter ordered the U.S. Navy to rescue the Boat People and take them to safety, and for that, we thank him very much.
Notice the similarities between Carter and Biden. It was Jimmy Carter who got a Navy buddy in charge of the Federal Reserve to gun the money supply to paper over the economy and get re-elected. That Fed move didn’t work out so well with sky high mortgage rates that could not be explained away and Volcker had to be brought in to fix it. Most people and even Fed watchers today can’t name that Carter buddy who preceded Volcker. And in the latest inflation surge, it was Biden who dumped on un-necessary stimulus on top of Trump’s and followed that up with the IRA spending. That power politics audacity to call it inflation reduction is what full control in DC and the media gets you.
Something that gets swept under the rug is Carters role in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and theocracy.
https://www.newsweek.com/why-jimmy-carter-owes-iranian-people-apology-opinion-1813190
Odd, isn’t it, how many fundamentalist movements seem to spring up pursuant to the overthrow of brutal dictators installed by the West?
The unspoken premise by leftists is that if we let the commies take over, they would have killed off the Salafis.
I get the feeling that you believe that prior to the west having influence in these regions, they were populated by well meaning democracies and everyone just loved their governments.
The reality is that prior to the cold war era, all of these countries had dictators of various flavors. We supported the dictators that were friendly to the west. The Soviets supported dictators that were friendly towards them, and sought to undercut all the others.
The fact that no country was better off after the Soviet backed movements took over should be a message, but some are too blinded by ideology to see it.
‘I get the feeling that you believe that prior to the west having influence in these regions, they were populated by well meaning democracies and everyone just loved their governments.’
This is a straw man argument and, no, I don’t believe it.
‘The reality is that prior to the cold war era, all of these countries had dictators of various flavors.’
Quite likely, as the installation of dictators, often by external forces, has been going on since the dawn of history.
‘We supported the dictators that were friendly to the west. The Soviets supported dictators that were friendly towards them, and sought to undercut all the others.’
Yes, and both sets of dictators, and the external forces that imposed them, were heavily resented by their respective subjects. Case in point re. Jimmy Carter, the Iranians hated us because our fingerprints were all over the Shah’s government, not because they vehemently disagreed with, say, our having a Bill of Rights.
‘The fact that no country was better off after the Soviet backed movements took over should be a message, but some are too blinded by ideology to see it.’
It’s undoubtedly true that living under Soviet rule sucked. My goal is not to live in a similar fashion under a collective form of government that uses coercion to impose its will on individuals.
It’s great that people like you and I can agree that there are nefarious and dictatorial motives (and a load of junk science) behind our government’s domestic attempts to ‘transition’ the economy away from fossil fuels. But ‘ideologically’, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a non-interventionist government at home if we’re extolling the same government to continually intervene in the affairs of other nations.
Sorry for OT,
but does someone still remember Naomi Seibt, the Anti-Greta around 5 years ago ?
She will be present when Trump takes over on 1/20. She has, it seems, good contacts to Elon Musk and had the idea he talks on X with Alice Weidel from AfD Germany.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/09/elon-musk-alice-weidel-german-far-right/
‘The engineering mind of the 39th President’ Huh?
People can say whatever they want about Carter but in the end I think he thought that government was the answer. When in fact government was the problem just like today. I’m sure Carter had faith in the experts and professionals who worked for him.
The most important thing to remember is that no group of experts, professionals, councils, bureaus, committees or any other gaggle of humans can match a lightly regulated free market. The number one reason is that markets are allowed to fail, government programs never. Failure in the market informs us what works and what doesn’t, what is a good idea and what isn’t. If you fail in the market you have to change what you are doing or go out of business. Failure in government is not an option. If things aren’t working out the way you had hoped the answer is to double down and spend more money, try harder and most important mandate the people’s behavior to better prop up your failures.
YES.
As Reagan so eloquently put it, the nine words that should strike deep fear into you:
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Trump is the great deregulator of woke Dimmocrats-
‘Projection’: Joe Biden’s accusations in final address just ‘pure confession’
Absolutely sublime that he knows he’s only got one term and any of them can’t cut the mustard or f*^k up they’re fired and NEXT! It’s going to be fun times.
I lived in South Louisiana during the Carter Administration. I ran a gas station and had 1000 bumper stickers made concerning the so called energy crisis.
He went on National TV and said all the natural gas would be gone in 50 years. Everyone in the Oil Field laughed. Well drillers would curse when they hit pockets of nat. gas. They would just flare in all off or just cap the well. The federal gov’t had a lot of rules on pricing on old vs new oil and gas. These rule prevented the full development wells drilled.
Gasoline was rationed so my station was allotted gasoline based on 3 years prior sales. The problem was my station was in a very high growth area so I ran out of gasoline quickly. I ran schemes such as limiting the time of day for gas sales, amount of gasoline one could purchase etc.
It almost put me out of business.
I have no love the the Carter years and the creation of the stupid dept of energy. I could go on but it would become boring to you.
Anyway here is a recreation of the bumper sticker to the best of my memory. I ran out of these in about 2 weeks, I gave them away.at the cash register.