Special Local Regulation; Bush River and Otter Point Creek; Between Perryman, MD and Edgewood, MD

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0264]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Bush River and Otter Point Creek; Between Perryman, MD and Edgewood, MD</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary special local regulation for certain waters of the Bush River and Otter Point Creek, in Maryland. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters, located at Edgewood, MD, during a high-speed power boat race on May 3, 2025, and May 4, 2025. This regulation prohibits persons and vessels (other than those already at berth at the time the regulation takes effect) from being in the regulated area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region (COTP), or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective without actual notice from April 15, 2025 through 7 p.m. on May 4, 2025. It will only be subject to enforcement, however, from 9 a.m. through 7 p.m. on each of the two days the rule is in effect. For the purposes of enforcement, actual notice will be used from 9 a.m. on May 3, 2025, until April 15, 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 USCG-2025-0264 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, 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 LCDR Kate Newkirk, Sector Maryland-NCR, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard: telephone 410-576-2596, email <E T="03">MDNCRWaterways@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">COTP Captain of the Port, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region</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 Information and Regulatory History</HD> The Kent Narrows Racing Association applied for a permit under 33 CFR 100.15 to conduct the Harford County Spring Nationals Inboard Hydroplane Race on May 3, 2025, and May 4, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on both days. The high-speed power boat racing event consists of approximately 60 participating racing boats—including composite and wood hull inboard hydroplanes—12 to 28 feet in length. Following the approval of a permit, the COTP may issue special local regulations under 33 CFR 100.35, as the Coast Guard is doing in the form of this temporary final rule. The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary rule under procedural authority in 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). This statutory provision authorizes an agency to issue a rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment when the agency for good cause finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” The Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for not publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) with respect to this rule because it is impracticable to provide notice, consider any comments received, and publish a final rule by May 3, 2025, when the rule must be in place to address the potential safety hazards associated with the high-speed power boat race. Also, under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for making this rule effective less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . There are fewer than 30 days between now and May 3, making a 30-day delay in the effective date impracticable if the rule is to serve its purpose of addressing to the potential safety hazards associated with the high-speed power boat race. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. The COTP has determined that potential hazards associated with the power boat race would be a safety concern for anyone intending to participate in this event and for vessels that operate within the specified waters of the Bush River and Otter Point Creek. The purpose of this rule is to protect event participants, non-participants, and transiting vessels before, during, and after the scheduled event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> This rule establishes a regulated area from 9 a.m. on May 3, 2025, through 7 p.m. on May 4, 2025. Although it will be in effect during that period, it will only be enforced from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 3, 2025, and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 4, 2025. The regulated area will cover all navigable waters of the Bush River and Otter Point Creek, shoreline to shoreline, bounded to the north by a line drawn from the western shoreline of the Bush River at latitude 39°21′15″ N, longitude 076°14′39″ W and thence eastward to the eastern shoreline of the Bush River at latitude 39°27′03″ N, longitude 076°13′57″ W, and bounded to the south by the Amtrak Railroad Bridge, across the Bush River at mile 6.8, between Perryman, MD and Edgewood, MD. These boundaries are based on a detailed course map for the event which the Coast Guard received from the sponsor on January 26, 2025. This map is available in the docket. For instructions on locating the docket, see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this preamble. The COTP, and the Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander (or “Event PATCOM,” a commissioned, warrant, or petty officer of the U.S. Coast Guard who has been so designated by the COTP) will have authority to forbid and control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in the regulated area. When hailed or signaled by an official patrol, a vessel or person in the regulated area will be required to immediately comply with the directions given by the COTP or Event PATCOM. If a person or vessel fails to follow such directions, the Coast Guard may expel them from the area, issue them a citation for failure to comply, or both. Except for Harford County Spring Nationals participants and vessels already at berth, a vessel or person will be required to get permission from the COTP or Event PATCOM before entering the regulated area. Vessel operators will be able to request permission to enter and transit through the regulated area by contacting the Event PATCOM on VHF-FM channel 16. Vessel traffic will be able to safely transit the regulated area once the Event PATCOM deems it safe to do so. A person or vessel not registered with the event sponsor as a participant or assigned as official patrols will be considered a spectator. Official Patrols are any vessel assigned or approved by the COTP with a commissioned, warrant, or petty officer onboard and displaying a Coast Guard ensign. Official Patrols enforcing this regulated area can be contacted on VHF-FM channel 16 and channel 22A. If permission is granted by the COTP or Event PATCOM, a person or vessel will be allowed to enter the regulated area or pass directly through the regulated area as instructed. Vessels will be required to operate at a safe speed in a manner that minimizes wake while within the regulated area and that would not endanger event participants or any other craft. A spectator vessel must not loiter within the navigable channel while present within the regulated area. Only participant vessels and official patrol vessels will be allowed to enter the race area. The Coast Guard will publish a notice in the Fifth Coast Guard District Local Notice to Mariners and issue a marine information broadcast on VHF-FM marine band radio announcing specific event dates and times. <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, 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 rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, this rule has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the size and duration of the regulated area, which will impact a small, designated area of the Bush River for a total of 20 enforcement hours. Although this regulated area extends across a large portion of the waterway, the rule will allow vessels and persons to seek permission to enter the regulated area, and if able to do so safely, vessel traffic will be able to transit the regulated area as instructed by the Event PATCOM. Such vessels must operate at a safe speed that minimizes wake and not loiter within the navigable channel while present within the regulated area. Moreover, the Coast Guard will issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the status of the regulated area. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The regulatory flexibility analysis provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, do not apply to rules not subject to notice and comment. As the C ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━