Assateague Island National Seashore; Oversand Vehicles

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>National Park Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 7</CFR> <DEPDOC>[NPS-ASIS-NPS0039274; INSERT BILLING CODE]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1024-AE90</RIN> <SUBJECT>Assateague Island National Seashore; Oversand Vehicles</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Park Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Park Service (NPS) proposes to amend the special regulations for Assateague Island National Seashore to remove certain permit eligibility requirements for motor vehicles that drive on designated beaches and oversand routes. The rulemaking would eliminate requirements addressing vehicle weight, ground clearance, and dimensions. These requirements were established in 1976 and are no longer necessary. In addition, the NPS proposes to make several technical, non-substantive changes to the regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET on March 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1024-AE90, by either of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Mail to: Superintendent, Assateague Island National Seashore, 7206 National Seashore Lane, Berlin, Maryland 21811. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments will not be accepted by fax, email, or in any way other than those specified above. All submissions received must include the words “National Park Service” or “NPS” and must include the docket number or RIN (1024-AE90) for this rulemaking. Comments received may be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/,</E> including any personal information provided. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/</E> and search for “1024-AE90”. In compliance with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act of 2023, the plain language summary of the proposal is available on <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> in the docket for this rulemaking. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Hugh Hawthorne, Superintendent, Assateague Island National Seashore; (410) 629-6080 Ext 6080; <E T="03">hugh_hawthorne@nps.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Purpose and Significance of Assateague Island National Seashore</HD> In 1965, Congress established the Assateague Island National Seashore to protect and develop Assateague Island and certain adjacent waters and small marsh islands for public outdoor recreation use and enjoyment. 16 U.S.C 459f. Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the NPS, to administer the Seashore for general purposes of public outdoor recreation, including conservation of natural features contributing to public enjoyment. 16 U.S.C. 459f-5. The NPS manages the Seashore as a unit of the National Park System. In addition to the Seashore that is managed by the NPS, other public lands on the island are managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (Assateague State Park) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge). The dominant feature of the Seashore is Assateague Island, a barrier island that stretches 37 miles along the Atlantic Coast of Maryland and Virginia. The island is a dynamic place, altered daily by powerful wind and waves. It is the largest natural barrier island ecosystem in the mid-Atlantic region that remains predominantly unaffected by human development. Only a couple of miles wide at its broadest point, the island's terrain offers shelter to famed wild horses as well as sika deer, ghost crabs, and migrating birds such as the great blue heron and snowy egret. The Seashore is a three-hour drive from Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Visitors to the Seashore can explore sandy beaches, salt marshes, maritime forests, and coastal bays. Popular recreational activities include swimming in the ocean, paddling in coastal bays, fishing, hunting, stargazing, and photography. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Authority To Promulgate Regulations</HD> The NPS Organic Act (54 U.S.C. 100101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) gives the NPS broad authority to regulate the use of lands and waters under its jurisdiction, including a specific authority to promulgate regulations it considers necessary or proper for the use and management of National Park System units. 54 U.S.C. 100751(a). The enabling act for the Seashore allows the NPS to use applicable legal authorities, including those provided by the Organic Act, for the conservation and management of natural resources. 16 U.S.C. 459f-5. Executive Order 11644, Use of Off-Road Vehicles on the Public Lands, was issued in 1972 and amended by Executive Order 11989 in 1977. Executive Order 11644 required Federal agencies to issue regulations designating specific areas and routes on public lands where the use of off-road vehicles may be allowed. The NPS implemented these Executive orders, in part, by promulgating a regulation at 36 CFR 4.10 (Travel on park roads and designated routes). Under 36 CFR 4.10, the use of motor vehicles off park roads is not permitted unless routes and areas are designated for off-road motor vehicle use by special regulation. Such routes and areas may be designated only in national recreation areas, national seashores, national lakeshores, and national preserves. This proposed rule would remove regulatory requirements for the use of oversand vehicles (OSVs) on designated beaches and oversand routes in the Seashore in compliance with 36 CFR 4.10 and Executive Orders 11644 and 11989. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Use and Management of OSVs in the Seashore</HD> The use of OSVs for access and recreation is a traditional activity that occurred on Assateague Island prior to the establishment of the Seashore. Oversand driving continues to this day and allows visitors to access locations within the Seashore, including remote areas, for recreational activities such as fishing, crabbing, viewing wildlife, and enjoying coastal scenery. The NPS formalized management of OSV use with the promulgation of special regulations in 1974 (39 FR 31633). These regulations established a system of oversand permits to manage the use of OSVs. These regulations designated areas for using OSVs under permit, provided rules of travel, and authorized the suspension or revocation of a permit for violating the regulations. In 1976 the NPS amended the special regulations (41 FR 15008) to allow the superintendent to establish a system of special recreation permits and fees for OSVs. The revised regulations also authorized OSV use in designated areas; established quantified standards to determine whether an OSV qualifies for a permit; and restricted the use of towed travel trailers. The OSV regulations for the Seashore have not changed since they were last amended in 1976. Using the superintendent's authority to establish a permit system, the superintendent has established additional management prescriptions for OSVs in the superintendent's compendium (or written compilation) of discretionary actions taken by the superintendent that is referred to in NPS regulations at 36 CFR 1.7(b). Among other actions, the compendium requires OSVs to have four-wheel or all-wheel drive and limits the number of OSVs that may be used in the Seashore. No more than 145 OSVs are allowed at any one time in designated OSV areas in Maryland. The NPS manages vehicle access on a one-off, one-on basis after this limit has been reached. In 2021 the NPS issued a Record of Decision (ROD) finalizing a General Management Plan (GMP) for the Seashore. The GMP provides a decision-making framework that ensures that management decisions effectively and efficiently carry out the NPS mission at the Seashore into the future. The ROD states that the NPS will manage OSV use for maximum flexibility to respond to changing conditions, protect sensitive resources, and minimize conflicts with other uses of the Seashore. The ROD also states that the NPS will periodically review regulations for OSV use at the Seashore and make changes if conditions render changes necessary. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Rule</HD> This proposed rule would amend the special regulations for the Seashore at 36 CFR 7.65(b) by revising the quantified standards used to determine if a motor vehicle qualifies for a permit that authorizes driving on designated beaches and oversand routes. The rulemaking would remove requirements that (1) the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) does not exceed 10,000 pounds; (2) the vehicle has at least seven inches of ground clearance; and (3) the vehicle does not exceed 26 feet in length and 8 feet in width. These requirements were established in 1976 and are no longer necessary. In addition, this rulemaking would make several technical, non-substantive changes to the regulations. All of these changes are discussed in more detail below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">GVWR Requirement</HD> Gross vehicle weight is the base curb weight of a vehicle plus actual cargo weight and passengers. Gross vehicle weight is not a limit or specification. It is an actual weight that should never exceed the GVWR for th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━