Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act

Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act - States that the purpose of this Act is to grant to the President of the United States temporary authority to deal with a national energy crisis involving extraordinary shortages of crude oil and petroleum products or dislocations in their national distribution system. Requires the President to take such actions as are necessary to insure the attainment of the following specific objectives: (1) protection of public health, safety, and welfare, and the national defense; (2) maintenance of all public services; (3) maintenance of all essential agricultural operations including farming, ranching, dairy and fishing activities and services directly related to the cultivation, production, and preservation of food; (4) preservation of an economically sound and competitive petroleum industry, including the competitive viability of the independent producing, refining, marketing, distributing, and petrochemical sectors of that industry; (5) equitable distribution of fuels at equitable prices among all regions and areas of the United States and all classes of consumers; (6) economic efficiency; and (7) minimization of economic distortion, inflexibility, and unnecessary interference with market mechanisms. Provides that the President shall designate an agency to supervise compliance with the requirements of this Act and to promulgate regulations hereunder. Establishes an Office of Emergency Fuel Allocation to receive complaints from officers of State and local governmental units who cannot obtain supplies of gasoline and fuel oil. Directs the President to use his authority under this Act to insure that no petroleum refinery in the United States is involuntarily required to operate at less than its normal fuel capacity because of the unavailability to said refinery of suitable types of crude oil. States that in order to achieve the objectives of this Act: (1) any producer or importer of crude petroleum and/or natural gas liquids who produced in the United States and/or imported more than two hundred thousand barrels per day of crude oil and natural gas liquids during the base period shall sell or exchange to nonaffiliated independent refiners or to any other reasonable and appropriate class of refiners established by regulation, in accordance with the objectives and priorities established under this Act, in the aggregate during each quarter during the effective term of this Act a proportion of his domestic production and imports no less than the proportion he sold or exchanged to such refiners during the corresponding quarter of the base period; and (2) all refiners or importers of petroleum products shall sell or exchange to nonaffiliated independent dealers or to any other reasonable and appropriate class of purchasers established by regulation, in accordance with the objectives and priorities established under this Act, in the aggregate in each quarter during the effective term of this Act, a proportion of his refinery production and imports of said products no less than the proportion he sold or exchanged to such dealers during the corresponding quarter of the base period. Expresses the sense of Congress that, in order to conserve gasoline supplies which in some areas of the Nation are approaching critical shortages, speed limits for motor vehicles traveling on Federal-aid highways presently at or in excess of fifty-five miles per hour should be reduced immediately to fifty-five miles per hour, or ten miles per hour lower than the speed limit posted on the affected portion of such Federal-aid highway, whichever is the greater. Requires the President to develop a national voluntary energy conservation program calling for and suggesting means of terminating unnecessary use of energy for power or lighting. Expresses the sense of Congress that the Governor of each State establish a State office of fuels and energy conservation for the purpose of developing and promulgating a program to encourage voluntary conservation of gasoline, diesel oil, heating oil, natural gas, propane, and electrical energy.

Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on June 12, 1973. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.

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