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There’s a famous observation that if you remember the 60’s, you really weren’t there. But if you ever waited in a gas line in the US in the 70’s, you remember it. And not fondly.

All of the craziness of the two periods of gasoline lines — in 1973-1974 during the Arab oil embargo, and then again in 1979 during the Iranian revolution — are recalled in a new book, Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s.

Author Meg Jacobs reviews the falling US production levels and rising consumption that set the stages for the first stirrings of the energy crisis in the early 1970’s. She recalls with tremendous accuracy — trust me, I was there — how the mere act of keeping your car filled with gasoline became a national obsession. (If it wasn’t for Watergate, it might have been the only obsession).

Even after gasoline lines went away and energy mostly dropped off the radar, Jacobs reviews how there was actually a lot going on in Washington, including the energy legislation under Gerald Ford that implemented a ban on crude exports, lifted only at the end of 2015. The war between the Carter administration and Congressional liberals over keeping prices under tight governmental control makes Jimmy Carter look like Ronald Reagan in his dedication to the free market. And then the gas lines popped up yet again when the Shah of Iran fell in 1979 and Iranian output plummeted.

It’s hard to read any book like this and not compare the politics of then to the politics of today. That period marked one of shortage and tremendous OPEC power; today, an oil glut that was the type of condition OPEC was established to deal with has left the organization powerless.

Then, it was the Democratic left, led by members of Congress like Toby Moffet, Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Howard Metzenbaum, who sought aggressive use of Presidential power – which the White House had – to keep prices down. The federal government regulated crude prices, and it regulated product prices.

Today, that same wing of the party seems almost uncomfortable with the lower prices the shale revolution has produced. Even before the decline in pri...