Well I see $10 gas happening piecemeal. First you have $200 bbl oil. Then there is an immediate spike in gas prices to $10 / gal. No one buys gas that day. Within about 12 hours of $200 bbl I see an executive order to open all national strategic oil reserves. With this price begin to flutter back down to $6/gal. Everyone buys gas that day, and the stations run out (happened in Houston during hurricane season).
Within 12 hours after that, I see congress countering with national price capping a rationing.
I see capped prices and rations or options as being the end state. I think the price would probably be capped at $6 /gal and rations issued at 5gal/wk/adult and 2.5gal/wk/dependent_child. So a couple with two children would get a ration or an option to buy 15gal/wk at 6$ gallon. If they really wanted to be all free market about it, they could allow gas to be bought without the option price. I think that gas would go for $20 /gal. So the UberRich would still be ok.
Most families could survive under this situation since it would simply mean that instead of taking two cars to work, they only take one. Allowing the sale of un-capped gas to subsidize the capped gas prices would also allow the Fed to finance the price capping. I think that there are still lots of people with tons of money that wouldn't think twice to filling there full sized HumVee at a whopping $1000. If your dumb enough to pay $70k for a land yacht, your dumb enough to pay 1k to fill it.
Real problem would be US troop movements. At $200bbl Powering a naval fleet and it's air force becomes anything but trivial.
Ohh yea, the selling of options is illegal. Get caught doing it, the state revokes your registration and title for your vehicle and bars you from getting a new title, registration or license till rationing is over. The Fed pushes this down on the states by revoking all federal highway funding and denying access to national reserves until a state complies.
Disclaimer: non Texans, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs of Texas rambling
In retaliation to the federalists behavior of the national government, states begin flexing state rights by refusing to enforce rationing. The first to do this is Texas (sorry Chuck & Marc, I just had to do it). Texas exercises its right under the 1845 US Texas treaty to subdivide it's land from 1 US state to 4 US states. The area of Central Texas and South Texas remain as the state of Texas, with 3 new states, North Texas, West Texas, East Texas. Capitols of Dallas, El Paso, and Houston. The members of Congress are divided according to district, and elections for 6 new US senators are held. All senators campaign on unifying Gulf state representation in Washington.
The new state of East Texas petitions the state of Texas for national guard troops to station around it's gulf cost refineries. Louisiana, seeing the positioning of Texas troops deploy their national guard as well. The federal government fearing an embargo of gulf coast refineries deploys US war ships to the Gulf of Mexico. Interstate frictions drive un-rationed gas prices to over $25/gal. The states formerly know as Texas who have refused rations are under cutting and selling at just under $8/gal.
East Texas and Louisiana, without a standing Navy Concede to the federal demands, but relations between the Texas States (and Louisiana) and Washington remain raw. Legislation aimed at penalizing the gulf states is never drafted, due in part to the unbalance in the senate, fresh with 6 new Texas senators, coupled with the abundance of Texans in the Executive branch and cabinet.
Eventually, the rationing takes hold and the population accept the inevitability of it. The US auto industry is crushed by need to switch to FE lines, but eventually switch most production to efficient lines. The transition takes enormous tolls on the Big 3, and the emerge from it a fraction of their former strength, but formidable none the less.
The hardest hit among all industries is housing. Across the country suburban ghettos are abound, as many people simply abandon their houses due to sharply falling real estate trends.
Heavy hits on the the Stock markets trigger a sharp recession which the federal reserve combats with raised interest rates. The escalating urban housing market drive many tenants out of their homes, most of which are forced to relocate in under valued suburban areas. Property ownership becomes harder to obtain due in part to the scarcity of viable urban real estate coupled with the ballooning interest rates.
After a sever US recession, the economy adjusts. Most of the permanent damage is in home ownership. Fewer US families can afford the luxury of owning homes. The US auto industry is heavily marred and dependent on deep US subsidies to remain afloat. They emerge significantly smaller than they were before.
The rationing is never really lifted, but simply transformed to a government price capping of "Strategic Energy Resources". Most opponents to energy exploration in wildlife reserves are over run. US restrictions of refinery construction are lifted and both the East and West coast become major hubs of US refinery work.
To stimulate the economy and curtail a national Depression, Next New Deal legislation is drafted for government programs focusing on Energy Independence and Sustainability. Huge education campaigns are started to stimulate national pride in conservation.
10 years after the fact the US is just like every other country, and is much more in line with global norms of energy consumption. Oil peaking is accepted and studied widely.