Statement by the President Upon Signing Proclamation Modifying Petroleum Import Control Program

I AM TODAY further modifying Proclamation 3279, March 10, 1959, which established a mandatory oil import control program within the Department of the Interior.

The purpose of this amendment is to permit, effective April 1, 1961, the orderly entrance of new importers, who do not currently qualify as importers, into the residual fuel oil markets of the East Coast. These new importers must be sellers in that area of residual fuel oil and will be granted residual fuel oil allocations on the basis of their deep-water terminal inputs of that fuel. Furthermore, the amendment will also result in more equitable residual fuel oil import allocations to several established importers.

This change in the method of allocating residual fuel oil imports will be effective in District I, which includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and the District of Columbia. Imports of residual fuel oil into other parts of the Nation are negligible, and current importing practices in those areas are not changed.

The Proclamation issued today also contains other technical amendatory language made necessary by adoption of the new method of issuing residual fuel oil allocations. These changes do not affect current procedures under which other portions of the mandatory oil import program are operated.

The Department of the Interior will shortly issue regulations implementing this proclamation, along the lines of the proposal published by that Department in the Federal Register on October 7, 1960.