Proclamation 4543—Modifying Proclamation No. 3279, as Amended, Relating to Imports of Petroleum and Petroleum Products, and Providing for the Long Term Control of Imports of Petroleum and Petroleum Products Through a System of License Fees

It is necessary that the United States complete the establishment of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve as quickly as possible.

The imposition of license fees on imports of crude oil and products for such Reserve would not carry out the purposes of Proclamation No. 3279, as amended, and could create administrative and other problems with respect to the expeditious completion of the Reserve.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862), do hereby proclaim that, effective as of October 1, 1977, Proclamation No. 3279, as amended, is further amended as follows:

Clauses (i) and (if) of subparagraph (1) of paragraph (a) of Section 3 are revised to read as follows:

"(i) with respect to imports of crude oil (other than that imported by the Department of Energy, or by another person or agency of the Federal Government acting on behalf of the Department, for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program) and natural gas products over and above the levels of imports established in Section 2 of this Proclamation, such fees shall be $0.21 per barrel;

(ii) with respect to imports of motor gasoline, unfinished oils, and all other finished products (except ethane, pro, pane, butanes, asphalt and finished products imported by the Department of Energy, or another person or agency of the Federal Government acting on behalf of the Department of Energy, for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program), over and above the levels of imports established in Section 2 of this Proclamation, such fees shall be $0.63 per barrel;".

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and second.

JIMMY CARTER