Shipping Safety Fairways in the Gulf of Maine

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 166</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2024-0248]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AC97</RIN> <SUBJECT>Shipping Safety Fairways in the Gulf of Maine</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Advance notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard seeks comments regarding the possible establishment of shipping safety fairways (“fairways”) in the Gulf of Maine identified in the Approaches to Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts Port Access Route Study. This potential system of fairways is intended to ensure that traditional navigation routes are kept free from fixed structures that could impact navigation safety. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before January 21, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0248 using the Federal Decision-Making Portal at <E T="03">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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For information about this document call or email Mr. Brian Mottel, Coast Guard; telephone 202-372-1526, email <E T="03">David.B.Mottel2@uscg.mil</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents for Preamble</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Basis and Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Information Requested</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</HD> The Coast Guard views public participation as essential to effective rulemaking, and will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. Your comment can help shape the outcome of this rulemaking. If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this rulemaking, indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. <E T="03">Submitting comments.</E> We encourage you to submit comments through the Federal Decision-Making Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> . To do so, go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> type USCG-2024-0248 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, look for this document in the Search Results column, and click on it. Then click on the Comment option. If you cannot submit your material by using <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> call or email the person in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this advance notice of proposed rulemaking for alternate instructions. <E T="03">Viewing material in docket.</E> To view documents mentioned in this advance notice of proposed rulemaking as being available in the docket, find the docket as described in the previous paragraph, and then select “Supporting & Related Material” in the Document Type column. Public comments will also be placed in our online docket and can be viewed by following instructions on the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> “Frequently Asked Questions” web page. That web page also explains how to subscribe for email alerts that will notify you when comments are posted or if a final rule is published. We review all comments received, but we will only post comments that address the topic of this advance notice of proposed rulemaking. We may choose not to post off-topic, inappropriate, or duplicate comments that we receive. <E T="03">Personal information.</E> We accept anonymous comments. Comments we post to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> will include any personal information you have provided. For more about privacy and submissions to the docket in response to this document, see the Department of Homeland Security's eRulemaking System of Records notice (85 FR 14226, March 11, 2020). <E T="03">Public meeting.</E> We do not plan to hold a public meeting, but we will consider doing so if we determine from public comments that a meeting would be helpful. We would issue a separate <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice to announce the date, time, and location of such a meeting. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Abbreviations </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ANPRM Advance notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">BOEM Bureau of Ocean Energy Management</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">Fairways Shipping safety fairways</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">MNMPARS Approaches to Maine-New Hampshire-Massachusetts Port Access Route Study</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OCS Outer Continental Shelf</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TSS Traffic separation scheme</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">WEA Wind Energy Area</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Basis and Purpose</HD> The purpose of this advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) is to seek public input on the potential establishment of shipping safety fairways (“fairways”) in the Gulf of Maine. The fairway locations would be added to title 33 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 166. The Approaches to Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts Port Access Route Study (MNMPARS)  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> found that fairways are needed to preserve safe navigation routes to and from U.S. ports throughout the study area, and recommended coordinates for these fairways. The Coast Guard is considering these coordinates as its starting point for the potential establishment of fairways in the Gulf of Maine. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Port Access Route Study: Approaches to Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts Final report, <E T="03">https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/PARS/FINAL_REPORT_Approaches_to_Maine_New_Hampshire_and_Massachusetts_Port_Access_Route_Study.pdf</E> . Last accessed July 5, 2024. A notice of availability for the MNMPARS was published April 6, 2023 (88 FR 20547). </FTNT> Establishing the recommended fairways would prohibit artificial islands or fixed structures within designated areas and would reduce the risk of vessel collisions, allisions, and groundings. Fairways would also reduce the potential for increased transit time and associated economic impacts that could result from redirecting vessel traffic, should offshore structures be integrated into the Marine Transportation System on the outer continental shelf (OCS). The MNMPARS and follow-on analysis confirmed the need to codify traditional routes into fairways in the study area. As such, the Coast Guard believes it is prudent to proceed with an ANPRM, followed by a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and final rule. This strategy enables robust engagement with interested persons who may not have contributed to the MNMPARS, supports further evolution of regulatory alternatives, enhances the Coast Guard's understanding of regional spatial planning needs, and reduces the need for a supplemental NPRM before a final rule. The legal basis for the potential establishment of fairways is Title 46 of the United States Code (U.S.C.), section 70003; Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Delegation No. 00170.1(II)(70), Revision No. 01.4. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Background</HD> The First Coast Guard District conducted the MNMPARS from March 31, 2022, to April 6, 2023. The study concluded that vessels transiting in the vicinity of offshore renewable energy lease areas may be affected, especially near or within traditional vessel traffic routes. Existing traffic separation schemes (TSSs) are established for vessels entering and exiting the ports of Portland, ME and Boston, MA; however, the TSSs do not extend far enough into the OCS to account for planned offshore renewable energy development within the study area. Currently, no commercial leases have been awarded in the MNMPARS study area; however, on March 15, 2024, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> the designation of a Final Wind Energy Area (WEA) in the Gulf of Maine, containing approximately 2 million acres of Federal waters for potential leasing. The agency issued a Final Sale Notice on September 17, 2024, identifying the final lease areas that will be auctioned at an October 29, 2024 lease sale. A portion of BOEM's initially proposed lease areas (OCS-A-562 and OCS-A-563) overlapped the recommended Gulf of Maine Fairway identified in the MNMPARS. However, BOEM's Final Sale Notice removes the conflicting overlap with the recommended fairway in the final lease areas. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  “BOEM Finalizes Wind Energy Area in the Gulf of Maine and Announces Upcoming Environmental Review of Potential Offshore Wind Leasing Activities,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; <E T="03">https://www.boem.gov/newsroom/press-releases/boem-finalizes-wind-energy-area-gulf-maine-and-announces-upcoming.</E> Last accessed April 23, 2024. </FTNT> In addition, BOEM has finalized and issued a 15,000-acre research lease to the State of Maine with an effective date of Sep 1, 2024. The project would construct up to 12 floating wind turbines adjacent to the Eastern Approach TSS, which is approximately 20 nautical miles off the coast of Portland, ME. BOEM, USCG, and the state of Maine have worked together to deconflict the research lease with the recommended fairways and existing ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━