Special Local Regulation; Clear Lake, Clear Creek, TX

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0207]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Clear Lake, Clear Creek, TX</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 is proposing to amend its regulations for annual marine events in the Sector Houston-Galveston area of responsibility. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels not participating in the event from being within the specified zones unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Houston-Galveston or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before June 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0207 using the 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 for further 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 about this proposed rulemaking, call or email Lieutenant Junior Grade Linda I Duncan, Sector Houston-Galveston Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 713-398-5823, email <E T="03">houstonwwm@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <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</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> On March 4, 2024, an organization notified the Coast Guard that it will be conducting the 17th annual high speed boat race from 8 a.m. to noon on June 21, 2024. The boat race is to be held in the waters of Clear Lake, in Clear Creek, TX. The Captain of the Port Houston-Galveston (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with the power boat race will be a safety concern for anyone within the Pre-Stage Zone, Approach Zone, Course Run Zone, and Shut-Down Zone before, during, and after the scheduled event. The Texas Outlaw Challenge Boat Race, in Clear Lake, Clear Creek, TX, occurs on an annually recurring basis. Historically, the Coast Guard has established annual temporary final regulations for this marine event. This proposed rule would consistently inform the public in a timely manner through permanent publication in Title 33 of the Code of Federal Regulations. This proposed rule would add a recurring marine event requiring a special local regulation to TABLE 3 of 33 CFR 100.801—Sector Houston-Galveston Annual and Recurring Marine Events. By establishing permanent regulations for this marine event, the Coast Guard would eliminate the need to establish temporary rules on an annual basis and thereby limit the costs associated with cumulative regulations. The purpose of this rulemaking is to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in the navigable waters within the Pre-Stage Zone, Approach Zone, Course Run Zone, and Shut-Down Zone before, during and after the annual Texas Outlaw Challenge power boat race in Clear Lake, TX. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. In order to allow a 30-day public comment period, the Coast Guard anticipates issuing a final rule with an effective date less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Should that occur, we will explain our good cause for doing so in that publication, as required by 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish a special local regulation from 8 a.m. to noon on a Friday of the third week of June. The special local regulation will encompass five different zones to include the Pre-Stage Zone, Approach Zone, Course Run Zone, Shut-Down Zone, and the Spectator Zone as described below: Pre-Stage Zone: This area is the pre-staging area for participating vessels to line up. It will include all waters within the following areas 29°33.13 N, 095°01.84 W thence to 29°33.12 N, 095°01.89 W thence to 29°33.23 N, 095°01.96 W thence to 29°33.13 N, 095°01.84 W. <E T="03">Approach Zone:</E> <FR>1/4</FR> mile distance required for participating vessels to obtain the minimum 40 mph requirement for course entry. This will be a straight line to begin at approximately 29°33.256 N, 095°01.89 W and end at approximately 29°33.33 N, 095°02.15 W. <E T="03">Course Run Zone:</E> <FR>3/4</FR> mile distance where participating vessels will conduct their high-speed run. This will be a straight line to begin at approximately 29°33.33 N, 095°02.16 W and end at approximately 29°33.53 N, 095°02.98 W. <E T="03">Shut-Down Zone:</E> 1 mile distance where participating vessels will be allowed to slow their speeds back to an idle. This will be a straight line to begin at approximately 29°33.53 N, 095°02.98 W and end at approximately 29°33.74 N, 095°04.1 W. <E T="03">Spectator Zone:</E> All vessels that will be viewing the event will be required to stay within a designated area. The sponsor is responsible for marking the spectator zone with 4 buoys on the outer corners and ensuring that all vessels within the area are anchored and remain in the area during all ongoing high-speed runs. The following coordinates are the approximate location of the Spectator Zone: 29°33.15 N, 95°02.34 W, thence to 29°33.11 N, 95°02.35 W, thence to 29°33.21 N, 95°02.50 W, thence to 29°33.15 N, 95°02.53 W. No vessel or person would be permitted to enter the established zones without obtaining permission from the on-water Safety-Officer or designated representative. The term “designated representative” means Coast Guard Patrol Commanders, including Coast Guard coxswains, petty officers, and other officers operating Coast Guard vessels, and Federal, state, and local officers designated by or assisting the Captain of the Port Houston-Galveston in the enforcement of the regulated areas. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <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 a number of these statutes and Executive orders, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <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 NPRM 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). Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, duration, and time-of-day of the safety zone. Vessel traffic would be able to safely transit around this safety zone which would impact a small, designated area of Clear Lake for 4 hours during the morning when vessel traffic is normally low. Moreover, the Coast Guard would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the zone, and the rule would allow vessels to seek permission to enter the zone. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 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 safety zone 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 proposed 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 proposed rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please call or email 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━