Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2024-0628]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is changing the operating schedule that governs the Blackburn Point Bridge across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW), mile 63.1, at Osprey, FL. The Case Key Association has requested the Coast Guard consider changing the operating schedule to reduce drawbridge openings during the weekday peak traffic periods to assist with alleviating roadway congestion. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective May 5, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To view documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Type the docket number (USCG-2024-0628) in the “SEARCH” box and click “SEARCH”. In the Document Type column, select “Supporting & Related Material.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this rule, call or email mail Ms. Jennifer Zercher, Bridge Management Specialist, Seventh Coast Guard District; telephone 571-607-5951, email <E T="03">Jennifer.N.Zercher@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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</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> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FL Florida</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GICW Gulf Intracoastal Waterway</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> On August 6, 2024, the Coast Guard published a temporary deviation entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 63815). The temporary deviation, effective from 7 a.m. on August 12, 2024, through 7 p.m. on January 31, 2025, allowed the Blackburn Point Bridge to operate with restricted, scheduled openings at peak traffic times during weekdays and operate on demand at all other times. The temporary deviation was authorized to test the impact of restricted opening on vessels and roadway traffic. The comment period for the temporary deviation ended September 20, 2024, with three comments received. Those comments were addressed in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) discussed next. On January 8, 2025, the Coast Guard published an NPRM entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 1402). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this regulatory change. During the comment period that ended February 7, 2025, we received one comment, and that comment is addressed in section IV of this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority 33 U.S.C. 499. Blackburn Point Bridge across the GICW, mile 63.1, at Osprey, FL, is a swing bridge with a 9-foot vertical clearance above mean high water when in the closed position. The existing general drawbridge regulation requires the bridge to open on demand any time a vessel requests an opening. The general drawbridge opening regulation can be found in 33 CFR 117.5. The Coast Guard received a request from the Casey Key Association to consider changing the operating schedule for the Blackburn Point Bridge by allowing the drawbridge scheduled openings instead of on demand openings. This request was made to assist with vehicle congestion during the weekday daylight hours. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes and the Final Rule</HD> The Coast Guard provided a comment period of 30 days, and one comment was received. The comment received stated that bridges in general, should not impede navigation any time. The default operating regulation for moveable bridges across navigable waters of the United States is to open on demand. Coast Guard policy is to minimize the impact of drawbridge operations on waterway traffic, while considering the needs of other modes of transportation. The test deviation has determined that by allowing the bridge to open at designated times has provided vehicle congestion relief while not having an unreasonable impact on navigation. The current operating schedule allows the Blackburn Point Bridge to open on demand for marine traffic. Under this rule, the swing bridge will open at the top of the hour, 20 minutes past the hour and 40 minutes past the hour, Monday through Friday between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. if a vessel request an opening for safe navigation. At all other times the swing bridge will open on demand. Vessels that can pass beneath the bridge without an opening may do so at any time. Emergency vessels and tugs with tows can still request an opening at any time. This rule adds one new special requirement to § 117.287 for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Blackburn Point Bridge at Osprey, FL. Additionally, this rule will republish § 117.287 to reorganize the paragraph structure to follow current regulatory drafting requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this 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. <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 rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, it 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 during the designated times and vessels able to pass without an opening may do so at any time. <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 rule will 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 V. A above, this rule will not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. 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 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. 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). The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Collection of Information</HD> This rule calls 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 Government</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 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 rule does not have Tribal implications under Executive Order 13175, Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, because it does 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. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. 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 regu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━