Legislation to punish price gouging would make things worse.

I would oppose that legislation.

The best way to deal with extreme scarcity of an essential good (food, energy) isn't to artificially keep the price low, but to prohibit and punish the use of such resources for wasteful purposes - particularly by the wealthy or redistribute wealth.

Imagine you lived in a colony that suddenly faced a famine where the fall's harvest has been ruined . . . but it is not yet fall.

You would want to immediately start rationing food - restricting wasteful consumption so that you will have food available when the real shortage hits in a few months. The idea that people should continue to consume the food in storage at the current rate because it was harvested at a time of plenty would be disastrous.

In a society that uses price to allocate goods and services, anticipating future starvation is what causes prices immediately to rise. This (1) reduces immediate consumption of good so that more will be available during the time of extreme shortage, and (2) provides an incentive to get more of the good before the time of extreme shortage hits.

However, there is a significant problem with this method when the scarcity is in an essential good. Price increase harms the poor more than the wealthy. The wealthy can afford to continue their wasteful uses because they can afford it.

Yet, keeping prices artificially low will make the poor much worse off when the full scarcity actually hits - when there is none of the essential service to be bought and the poor literally die as a result. Tens of millions died of starvation in the famines in Russia and China.

The proper solution would be to prohibit wasteful consumption by wealthy people. This cannot be done through price (as this harms the poor), but is to be done by passing legislation that punishes wasteful consumption like vacations and artistic or aesthetic uses of the scarce resource. Prohibiting wasteful consumption by the wealthy will increase supplies and keep prices from rising as high (helping the poor).

Another, even simpler solution is to tax the very wealthy and use that tax revenue to provide cash compensation for the very poor.