Special Local Regulations & Safety Zones; USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Parts 100 and 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0879]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08 and 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulations & Safety Zones; USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes</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 amending existing regulations relating to special local regulations and safety zones that occur annually in Captain of the Port Zone Eastern Great Lakes. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective May 23, 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-2024-0879 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 about the rule, call or email Lieutenant William Kelley, Waterways Management at Sector Eastern Great Lakes, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 716-931-4680, email <E T="03">D09-SMB-SECBuffalo-WWM@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 Information and Regulatory History</HD> The Coast Guard lists annual marine events in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). For Coast Guard Sector Eastern Great Lakes, special local regulations are listed in 33 CFR 100.901 and safety zones are listed in 33 CFR 165.939. Over the 2023 calendar year, the Coast Guard was notified of multiple marine events that are conducted on an annual basis. The Coast Guard previously established temporary regulations implementing safety zones or special local regulations for each of the respective events. The Captain of the Port (COTP) Sector Eastern Great Lakes determined that potential hazards associated with these events would be a safety concern for anyone within boundaries defined in the proposed special local regulations and safety zones during the period of these respective events. Moreover, the COTP Sector Eastern Great Lakes also sought to rename several of the enumerated events in § 165.939 to accurately reflect the current event names. Additionally, the COTP Sector Eastern Great Lakes also determined that some of the events currently listed in the existing regulations are no longer required. The purpose of the rule is to ensure the safety of vessels and the navigable waters before, during, and after each respective scheduled event. The Coast Guard published a NPRM titled “Special Local Regulations & Safety Zones; USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> In the NPRM, we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this rule. During the comment period that ended February 20, 2025, we received 1 comment. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  90 FR 6903. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under the authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034 and 70041. The COTP Sector Eastern Great Lakes has determined that restructure and amendment to the tables in §§ 165.939 and 100.901 are necessary for the expeditious and efficient implementation of annual safety zones and special local regulations for local marine events. The purpose of this rule is to ensure safety of vessels and the navigable waters in the safety zone and special local regulations before, during, and after the scheduled event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments</HD> As noted above, we received 1 comment on our NPRM that published on January 21, 2025. The commenter expressed support for the proposed changes. There are no changes in the regulatory text of this rule derived from comments or responses to the NPRM. There are adjustments to some entries on the tables in the regulatory text, adjusting for a more accurate depiction of each respective event as they are currently conducted. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Discussion of the Rule</HD> With this final rule, the Coast Guard is making the following changes from the NPRM. We split the proposed table 1 to § 100.901 and added table 2 to § 100.901. We made this non-substantive change to separate the areas of responsibility for the Eastern Great Lakes and Northern Great Lakes, thereby, increasing efficiency and ease of reference for the United States Coast Guard and the general public. We made the following changes to Table 1 to § 165.939: 1. In paragraph (g), event No. (5), the title for the event is changed from proposed, “Mentor Harbor Yacht Club Fireworks” to “Mentor Harbor Yacht Club.” In addition, the size of the existing safety zone has been reduced from 700 feet to 500 feet. After publication of the NPRM, the Coast Guard determined that a smaller safety zone was appropriate to provide for public safety and facility commerce and navigation. 2. In paragraph (h), event No. (2) for “D-Day Conneaut,” the size of the existing safety zone has been reduced within its current footprint. After publication of the NPRM, the Coast Guard determined that a smaller safety zone was sufficient to provide for the safety of the event participants and the general public. 3. In paragraphs (i), events No. (1) “Madison Light Up the Park” and No. (3) “Head of the Cuyahoga,” in the dates column, the words, “on or around” have been added to allow for increased flexibility for external factors, such as weather delays and calendar conflicts with other local events. <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, the rule 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 each respective event. Each event establishes temporary safety zones or special local regulations lasting a short period of time over a small geographic area. <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 received no comments from the Small Business Administration on this rulemaking. 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 affected areas may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above, this rule would 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 will 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. 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 will not call for a 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 Governments</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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 41k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━