Yes, Scott, I do recall the gas lines in 1979 during the Iranian revolution.  I also recall the gas lines in 1973 as much worse during the OPEC embargo.  I was doing a lot more out of county work during both than I do now.  I learned during both when and where it was best to buy gas as I traveled without running into the silly lines.  It was kind of funny in a way to watch folks wait in line with their cars idling to save a few pennies a gallon, giving away the savings as they waited.

Carter did establish the Department of Energy as a cabinet level program, tying together dozens of departments throughout the federal government that deal with energy issues.  The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, initiated by Ford but implemented by Carter still seems a good idea to me.  He also started the the decontrol of crude oil prices by executive order, a control that, as I recall Nixon had started.  Much of what Carter advocated in his energy plans were quite forward thinking with long range goals.  Much of what he suggested about alternative, renewable energy sources, were acknowledged by him to be items that would bear fruit by the turn of the century.

It seems in retrospect to have been a good combination of immediate remedies (mandating better gas mileage, voluntary management of heating and cooling costs, insulating homes and businesses, driving slower)  and longer term goals (improving mass transit, investing in alternative energy sources we have at home, greenhouse gas reductions).  My whole point in my initial post was to suggest considering where we might be now if the longer term goals championed by Carter had been carried out over the last thirty years, rather than now being resurrected as something new.