Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Umpqua River, Reedsport, OR

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2023-0969]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Umpqua River, Reedsport, OR</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 name and operating schedule that governs the Central Oregon and Pacific railroad bridge across the Umpqua River, mile 11.5, at Reedsport, OR. Coos Bay Rail Line, the bridge owner, requested to change the name of the bridge to a locally recognized name and to change the current operating schedule due to reduced marine traffic using the waterway. The modified rule would change the name of the bridge, allow the bridge to be maintained in the closed to navigation position and remove the requirement for fog signals at the bridge. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and relate material must reach the Coast Guard on or before May 28, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2023-0969 using Federal Decision Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section below for instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100 word or less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this proposed rule, call or email Danny McReynolds, Bridge Management Specialist Thirteenth District, Coast Guard; telephone 206-220-7234, email, <E T="03">d13-smb-d13-bridges@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CBRL Coos Bay Rail Line</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Advance, Supplemental)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> The Coos Bay Rail Line (CBRL) owns and operates the Central Oregon and Pacific railroad bridge across the Umpqua River at mile 11.5. The CBRL requested to change the subject bridge name to the Umpqua River railroad bridge, which is a more recognizable local name. The Central Oregon and Pacific railroad bridge will be referred to as the Umpqua River railroad bridge for the rest of this NPRM. Umpqua River railroad bridge is maintained in the open to navigation position. We are proposing to change 33 CFR 117.893(b) to maintain the Umpqua River railroad bridge in the closed to navigation position and open to marine vessels with a minimum of two-hours' advance notice. In the closed to navigation position, the bridge provides 15 feet of vertical clearance above high water. The Umpqua River has experienced a reduction in marine traffic using the waterway while CBRL has experienced an increase in rail traffic that requires the bridge span to be in the closed position. Vessels that regularly request draw openings are two fishing vessels named Pearl J and Pacific Marit. These vessels transit upriver to a repair facility, and after repairs, the vessels transit down river to their normal moorings. The proposed regulation change would allow the Umpqua River railroad bridge to be maintained in the closed to navigation position to marine vessels, and the bridge will open with at least two-hours' notice via the phone number posted on the bridge. The phone number to contact CBRL will be published in the Local Notice to Mariners. Currently the bridge operates fog signals to warn vessels when the bridge is cycled closed and open during reduced visibility. This proposed regulation change would open the subject bridge on request from mariners, and therefore, the mariner would know the bridge is open and have no need to be warned of the position of the draw during fog or any reduced visibility type of weather. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> This proposed rule would amend the operating schedule of the Umpqua River railroad bridge by allowing the bridge to remain in the closed to navigation position and would require two-hours' advance notice for all draw openings. The rule is necessary to balance the needs of the railroad by reducing the need to frequently cycle the draw closed for rail traffic and back open for marine traffic, while still maintaining the reasonable needs of navigation. Over the years the bridge has had multiple owners, but the bridge name in the Code of Federal Regulations has not changed. Changing the bridge name to the proposed name will alleviate the need of a future rule change if the railroad ownership changes. Vessels able to transit under the bridge without an opening may do so at any time. This regulatory action determination is based on the ability for the Umpqua River railroad bridge to open on signal after the CBRL has received at least two-hours' notice by telephone. The Coast Guard has made this finding understanding that the proposed change allows any vessel that needs a drawbridge opening to transit through the Umpqua River railroad bridge with the proper advance notice during clear visibility or reduced visibility. Changing the position of the draw to be maintained closed to mariners, vice open to mariners, would allow all mariners to know the draw is always closed except when a signal is given to open the draw. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive Orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on these statutes and Executive Orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This proposed rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review). This NPRM has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the ability that vessels can still transit the bridge given advanced notice. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA), 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires Federal agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. 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. 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. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to transit the bridge may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect it. 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. 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 in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this proposed rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. 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="HD2">D. Federalism and Indian Tribal Governments</HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132 (Federalism), if it has a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the National Government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. We have analyzed this proposed rule under that Order and have determined that it is consistent with the fundamental federalism principles and preemption requirements described in Executive Order 13132. Also, this proposed rule does not have tribal implications under Executive Order 13175 (Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments) because it would not have a substantial direct effect on one or more Indian tribes, on the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian tribes, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities between the Federal Government and Indian tribes. If you believe this propos ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━