Drawbridge Operation Regulations; Caloosahatchee River Bridge (SR 29), Okeechobee Waterway, LaBelle, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard </SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117 </CFR> <DEPDOC>[CGD07-02-141] </DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09 (Formerly 2115-AE47) </RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulations; Caloosahatchee River Bridge (SR 29), Okeechobee Waterway, LaBelle, FL</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to change the operating regulations of the Caloosahatchee River bridge (SR 29), Okeechobee Waterway, mile 103, LaBelle, Florida. This proposed rule would require the bridge to open on signal, except during the morning and evening rush hours when the bridge need not open. Tugs with tows, public vessels of the United States, and vessels in distress would be passed at any time. This proposed rule is intended to improve the movement of vehicular traffic during rush hour periods while not unreasonably interfering with the needs of navigation. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before May 19, 2003. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may mail comments and related material to Commander (obr), Seventh Coast Guard District, 909 SE. 1st Avenue, Room 432, Miami, FL 33131. Comments and material received from the public, as well as documents indicated in this preamble as being available in the docket, are part of docket (CGD07-02-141) and are available for inspection or copying at Commander (obr), Seventh Coast Guard District, 909 SE. 1st Avenue, Miami, Florida 33131 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Barry Dragon, Bridge Branch, 909 SE. 1st Ave, Miami, FL 33131, telephone number 305-415-6743. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Comments </HD> We encourage you to participate in this rulemaking by submitting comments and related material. If you do so, please include your name and address, identify the docket number for this rulemaking (CGD07-02-141), indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, and give the reason for each comment. Please submit all comments and related material in an unbound format, no larger than 8 <FR>1/2</FR> by 11 inches, suitable for copying. If you would like to know they reached us, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard or envelope. We will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. We may change this proposed rule in view of them. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Meeting </HD> We do not now plan to hold a public meeting. But you may submit a request for a meeting by writing to Bridge Branch, Seventh Coast Guard District, 909 SE. 1st Ave, Room 432, Miami, Florida 33131, explaining why one would be beneficial. If we determine that one would aid this rulemaking, we will hold one at a time and place announced by a later notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background and Purpose </HD> The Caloosahatchee River bridge (SR 29) is a two-lane, narrow, undivided arterial roadway. The waterway has safe waiting areas on each side of the bridge for all vessels, however the waterway is predominately used by small to mid-sized recreational vessels. The roadway is severely congested due to insufficient vehicular capacity. The existing operating schedule is published in 33 CFR 117.5 and requires the bridge to open on signal. The Mayor of Labelle requested that the bridge be allowed to remain in the closed position during the morning and evening rush hours to facilitate vehicular traffic movement. This proposed rule would continue to require the drawbridge to open on signal, except that from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays, the draw need not open. Tugs with tows, public vessels of the United States and vessels in distress would be passed at any time. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Proposed Rule </HD> In order to facilitate vehicular traffic flow while not unreasonably impacting navigation, the Coast Guard proposes to require the Caloosahatchee River bridge (SR 29) to open on signal, except that from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays, the bridge need not open. Tugs with tows, public vessels of the United States and vessels in distress would be passed at any time. This proposed rule would facilitate the movement of vehicle traffic across the bridge while not unreasonably interfering with or decreasing vessel safety while awaiting passage through the draw. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Evaluation </HD> This proposed rule is not a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review, and does not require an assessment of potential costs and benefits under section 6(a)(3) of that Order. The Office of Management and Budget has not reviewed it under that Order. It is not significant under the regulatory policies and procedures of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We expect the economic impact of this proposed rule to be so minimal that a full Regulatory Evaluation under the regulatory policies and procedures of DHS is unnecessary because this proposed rule would only slightly modify the existing bridge operation schedule during weekday vehicle traffic rush hours. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Small Entities </HD> Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601-612), we considered whether this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. This proposed rule may affect the following entities, some of which might be small entities: the owners or operators of vessels and vehicles intending to transit under and over the Caloosahatchee River bridge (SR 29) during the hours of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities because this proposed rule only slightly modifies the existing bridge operation schedule during weekday vehicle traffic rush hours. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment ( <E T="03">see</E> <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect it. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Assistance for Small Entities </HD> Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this proposed rule so that they can better evaluate its effects on them and participate in the rulemaking. If the rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . Small businesses may send comments on the actions of Federal employees who enforce, or otherwise determine compliance with, Federal regulations to the Small Business and Agriculture Regulatory Enforcement Ombudsman and the Regional Small Business Regulatory Fairness Boards. The Ombudsman evaluates these actions annually and rates each agency's responsiveness to small business. If you wish to comment on actions by employees of the Coast Guard, call 1-888-REG-FAIR (1-888-734-3247). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Collection of Information </HD> This proposed rule would call for no new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Federalism </HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132, Federalism, if it has a substantial direct effect on State or local governments and would either preempt State law or impose a substantial direct cost of compliance on them. We have analyzed this proposed rule under that Order and have determined that it does not have implications for federalism. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act </HD> The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1531-1538) requires Federal agencies to assess the effects of their discretionary regulatory actions. In particular, the Act addresses actions that may result in the expenditure by a State, local, or tribal government, in the aggregate, or by the private sector of $100,000,000 or more in any one year. Although this proposed rule will not result in such an expenditure, we do discuss the effects of this rule elsewhere in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Taking of Private Property </HD> This proposed rule would not effect a taking of private property or otherwise have taking implications under Executive Order 12630, Governmental Actions and Interference with Constitutionally Protected Property Rights. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Civil Justice Reform </HD> This proposed rule meets applicable standards in sections 3(a) and 3(b)(2) of Executive Order 12988, Civil Justice Reform, to minimize litigation, eliminate ambiguity, and reduce burden. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Protection of Children </HD> We have analyzed this proposed rule under Executive Order 13045, Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks. This proposed rule is not an economically significan ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 13k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━