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STAT.]

675

PUBLIC LAW 569-AUG. 9, 1954

Public Health Service of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare hereunder, are transferred for use in the administration of the functions so transferred. Any of the personnel transferred pursuant to this Act which the transferee agency shall find to be in excess of the personnel necessary for the administration of the functions transferred to such agency shall be retransferred under existing law to other positions in the Government or separated from the service. SEC. 5. The Act of April 3, 1952 (66 Stat. 35), and all other laws or parts of laws in conflict herewith, are hereby repealed. SEC. 6. This Act shall take effect July 1, 1955. Approved August 5, 1954. Public Law 569

25 USC 444-449. Repeals. Effective date.

CHAPTER 659

AN ACT To extend emergency foreign merchant vessel acquisition and operating authority of Public Law 101, Seventy-seventh Congress, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America ifi Congress assembled, That during any period in which vessels may be requisitioned under section 902 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended, the President is authorized and empowered through the Secretary of Commerce to purchase, or to requisition, or for any part of such period to charter or requisition the use of, or to take over the title to or possession of, for such use or disposition as he shall direct, any merchant vessel not owned by citizens of the United States which is lying idle in waters within the jurisdiction of the United States, including the Canal Zone, and which the President finds to be necessary to the national defense. Just compensation shall be determined and made to the owner or owners of any such vessel in accordance with the applicable provisions of section 902 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended. Such compensation hereunder, or advances on account thereof, shall be deposited with the Treasurer of the United States in a separate deposit fund. Payments for such compensation and also for payment of any valid claim upon such vessel in accord with the provisions of the second paragraph of subsection (d) of such section 902, as amended, shall be made from such fund upon the certificate of the Secretary of Commerce. SEC. 2. During any period in which vessels may be requisitioned under section 902 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended, the President is authorized through the Secretary of Commerce to acquire by voluntary agreement of purchase or charter the ownership or use of any merchant vessel not owned by citizens of the United States. SEC. 3. (a) Any vessel not documented under the laws of the United States, acquired by or made available to the Secretary of Commerce under this Act, or otherwise, may, notwithstanding any other provision of law, in the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury be documented as a vessel of the United States under such rules and regulations or orders, and with such limitations, as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe or issue as necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes and provisions of this Act, and in accordance with the provisions of subsection (c) hereof, engage in the coastwise trade when so documented. Any document issued to a vessel under the provisions of this subsection shall be surrendered at any time that such surrender may be ordered by the Secretary of the Treasury. No

August 9, 1954 IS. 2371]

Foreign ve s s e l s. Emergency acquisition. 49 Stat. 2015. 46 USC 1242.

46 USC 1242.

S u r r e n d er o f document.

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