Special Local Regulation; St. Mary's River, St. George's Creek, Piney Point, MD

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0315]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; St. Mary's River, St. George's Creek, Piney Point, 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 St. Mary's River. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters, located at Piney Point, MD, during a two-day, high-speed, power boat demonstration event on June 7, 2025, and June 8, 2025. This rule prohibits persons and vessels from being in the regulated area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Maryland-National Capital Region, or the Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is in effect from 7:30 a.m. on June 07, 2025, through 5 p.m. on June 08, 2025. It will be enforced, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 07, 2025, and from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 08, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this rulemaking, call or email LCDR Kate Newkirk, Sector Maryland-NCR, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard: telephone 410-576-2596, email <E T="03">MDNCRMarineEvents@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</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PATCOM Coast Guard Patrol Commander</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SLR Special local regulation</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 has received a request, under 33 CFR 100.15, for a Marine Event Permit to host a high-speed, power boat demonstration event in Piney Point, MD on June 07, 2025, and June 08, 2025, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both days. As “an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule,” the scheduled event is a “regatta or marine parade,” as defined at 33 CFR 100.05(a). The Captain of the Port (COTP), after approving plans for the holding of a regatta or marine parade within his or her district or zone, is authorized to promulgate such special local regulations (SLRs) as he or she deems necessary to ensure safety of life on the navigable waters immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the approved regatta or marine parade. 33 CFR 100.35. The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary final rule under the 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 at the current time it is impracticable to publish an NPRM, consider comments received, and publish a final rule by June 07, 2025, when the rule must be in place to serve its intended purpose. 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> because it is impracticable to be able to get the rule published by May 7, 2025, thirty days before it must be in effect to serve its intended purpose. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for the Rule</HD> Hazards associated with the vintage and historic racing powerboat demonstrations will be a safety concern for anyone intending to participate in this event and for vessels that operate within waters of the St. Mary's River which would be covered by this rule. If normal vessel traffic were allowed to interfere with the event, potential hazards would include the risk of injury or death resulting from near or actual contact among participant vessels, spectator vessels, or non-participant waterway users. The purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of event participants, non-participants, and transiting vessels before, during, and after the scheduled event. The Coast Guard is promulgating this rule under statutory authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The COTP is establishing a special local regulation which will be in effect from 7:30 a.m. on June 07, 2025, through 5 p.m. on June 08, 2025. The regulation will only be enforced, however, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 07, 2025, and from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 08, 2025. The regulated area covers all navigable waters of St. George Creek. This area starts at Cedar Point, follows the western shoreline south to Coade Bar, then cuts southeast across the creek to Dodson Point. From there, it continues north along the eastern shoreline, including the area near the St. George Island Bridge (SR-249), all the way up to Long Bar at the entrance to St. George Harbor. The boundary then wraps northeast across the creek back to Cedar Point, terminating at the point of origin The regulated area is approximately 1,750 yards in length and 940 yards in width. The duration of the special local regulation and size of the regulated area is intended to ensure the safety of life on these navigable waters before, during, and after the high-speed power boat event scheduled to take place from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 07, 2025, and from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 08, 2025. No vessel or person will be permitted to enter the safety zone without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. <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 TFR 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 St. George Creek for 19 total enforcement hours. This waterway supports mainly recreational vessel traffic with peak vessel traffic occurring during the summer season. Although this regulated area extends across the entire width of the waterway, the rule would allow vessels and persons to seek permission to enter the regulated area if it is safe to do so. The Event PATCOM would allow vessel traffic to transit the eastern portion of the waterway away from the event area when it is safe to do so. Vessels given permission to enter the regulated area must operate at a safe speed that minimizes wake and must not loiter within the navigable channel while within the regulated area. Moreover, the Coast Guard would 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 Coast Guard has, for good cause, waived the notice and comment requirement that would otherwise apply to this rulemaking, the Regulatory Flexibility Act's flexibility analysis provisions do not apply here. 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 call or email the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Collection of Information</HD> This rule would 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 13175 (Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments) because it would 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. If you believe this rule has implications for federalism or Indian Tribes, please call or emai ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━