Gas Shortage
- Submitted by: wvu3507
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- Category: History: American
- Date Submitted: 11/26/2011 01:03 PM
- Pages: 3
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Gas Shortage
The gas shortage or oil crisis in the United States was something that most middle aged Americans today remember. It was a time of uncertainty for Americans when it came time to fill up the gas tanks on their cars. Was there going to be gas at the local station or would they be out? It was a question that ran through the heads of most Americans at that time. The shortage of gas at the time was something that will probably never happen again in this country and something that would be devastating if it did. First let’s see how all of this happened.
The gas shortage or oil crisis was mainly caused by the Iranian Revolution. This was caused because the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decided to flee the country after protests by the Iranian citizens. This caused drilling of oil to slow down and even stop in most places. Therefore, exports to the United States to dramatically decline and eventually stop. Because of this stop in oil exports, once exports started to resume they were sent out in lower volumes then before the stoppage. This caused the supply and demand aspect of oil to get out of whack. The prices of a gallon of oil went up dramatically. This wouldn’t have been so bad had the Carter administration not stopped all oil imports from Iran. That was one of the dumbest things I believe he could have done, all it did was cause widespread panic in this country, but we’ll get back to that.
The Carter administration in response began deregulation of oil prices. This allowed the United States to start outputting oil at a much faster rate then before but we started importing oil slower than before as well. If someone can explain to me how this makes any sense at all, I would love to hear. Anyways, because of the increased exports of oil and decreased imports of oil it created a shortage here in the country. This caused great fear in the country. The country had already gone through one of these gas shortages in 1973 and now another one was...
The gas shortage or oil crisis in the United States was something that most middle aged Americans today remember. It was a time of uncertainty for Americans when it came time to fill up the gas tanks on their cars. Was there going to be gas at the local station or would they be out? It was a question that ran through the heads of most Americans at that time. The shortage of gas at the time was something that will probably never happen again in this country and something that would be devastating if it did. First let’s see how all of this happened.
The gas shortage or oil crisis was mainly caused by the Iranian Revolution. This was caused because the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decided to flee the country after protests by the Iranian citizens. This caused drilling of oil to slow down and even stop in most places. Therefore, exports to the United States to dramatically decline and eventually stop. Because of this stop in oil exports, once exports started to resume they were sent out in lower volumes then before the stoppage. This caused the supply and demand aspect of oil to get out of whack. The prices of a gallon of oil went up dramatically. This wouldn’t have been so bad had the Carter administration not stopped all oil imports from Iran. That was one of the dumbest things I believe he could have done, all it did was cause widespread panic in this country, but we’ll get back to that.
The Carter administration in response began deregulation of oil prices. This allowed the United States to start outputting oil at a much faster rate then before but we started importing oil slower than before as well. If someone can explain to me how this makes any sense at all, I would love to hear. Anyways, because of the increased exports of oil and decreased imports of oil it created a shortage here in the country. This caused great fear in the country. The country had already gone through one of these gas shortages in 1973 and now another one was...