Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Inside Thorofare, Ventnor City, New Jersey

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2025-0312]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Inside Thorofare, Ventnor City, New Jersey</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to modify the operating schedule that governs the Dorset Avenue Bridge across Inside Thorofare, mile 72.1 at Ventnor City, NJ. The proposed rule would allow the drawbridge to only open between the hours of 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. if at least four hours' notice is given. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before July 9, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-3012 using the Federal Decision-Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section below for instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this proposed rule, email Mr. Jack H. Williams, Bridge Management Specialist, Fifth Coast Guard District, at (206) 815-5085 or <E T="03">Jack.H.Williams2@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> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> The Dorset Avenue Bridge across Inside Thorofare, mile 72.1, at Ventnor City, NJ, has a vertical clearance of 9 feet at mean high water in the closed to navigation position (unlimited in the open to navigation position) and a horizontal clearance of 50 feet between the bridge protective system. Waterway users include pleasure craft, commercial and sport fishing vessels. The existing drawbridge operating regulation for the Dorset Avenue Bridge is listed in 33 CFR 117.733(i) and requires that the Bridge open on signal except that from June 1 through September 30, from 9:15 a.m. to 9:15 p.m., the draw need only open at 15 and 45 minutes after the hour. A review of the drawbridge logs provided by Atlantic County, the Bridge Owner, has revealed that requests for opening of the bridge have decreased thus indicating minimal use. For the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., the Dorset Avenue Bridge has opened 42, 51, and 29 times, for vessels, respectively. Because of minimal demand for bridge opening, between the hours of 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., the bridge owner has requested that during these hours, year-round, the bridge need only open when a four-hour advance notice is given. The legal basis for this proposed rule is 33 U.S.C. 499. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to amend Section 117.733 by revising paragraph (i) to include a new 4 hour notice requirement for openings between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. The proposed rule would require a four-hour advance notice for openings, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., for the Dorset Avenue Bridge. Vessels that can pass under the restricted vertical clearance and without requesting a bridge opening may do so. We propose to keep the existing operating schedule for the June 1 through September 30 time period. Existing regulations state from June 1 through September 30, from 9:15 a.m. to 9:15 p.m., the draw need open only on the 15 and 45 minutes after the hour. At all other times not mentioned, the bridge would open on signal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive Orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on 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 proposed rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the NPRM 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 when the bridge operator is given advanced notice. <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 proposed rule would 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 IV.A above this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator <E T="03">.</E> If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect it. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this proposed rule. If the proposed 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. The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this proposed rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Collection of Information</HD> This proposed rule would call 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 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 proposed 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 proposed 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 proposed rule has implications for federalism or Indian tribes, please contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <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 regulatory actions. In particular, the Act addresses actions that may result in the expenditure by a State, local, or tribal government, in the aggregate, or by the private sector of $100,000,000 (adjusted for inflation) or more in any one year. Though this proposed rule will not result in such an expenditure, we do discuss the effects of this proposed rule elsewhere in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Environment</HD> We have analyzed this rule under Department of Homeland Security Management Directive 023-01, Rev.1, associated implementing instructions, and Environmental Planning Policy COMDTINST 5090.1 (series), which guide the Coast Guard in complying with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)(42 U.S.C. 4321-4370f). The Coast Guard has determined that this action is one of a category of actions that do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment. This proposed rule promulgates the operating regulations or procedures for drawbridges. Normally such actions are categorically excluded from further review, under paragraph L49, of Appendix A, Table 1 of DHS Instruction Manual 023-01-001-01, Rev. 1. Neither a Record of Environmental Consideration nor a Memorandum for the Record are required for this rule. We seek any comments or information that may lead to the discovery of a significant environmental impact ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━