Special Local Regulation; 4th of July Fireworks, Lower East River & Upper New York Bay, Manhattan and Brooklyn, NY

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0257]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; 4th of July Fireworks, Lower East River & Upper New York Bay, Manhattan and Brooklyn, NY</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 special local regulation on the navigable waters of the Lower East River and New York Harbor, NY, for a 4th of July fireworks display. This special local regulation allows the Coast Guard to control vessel movement and prohibit all vessel traffic from entering the fireworks barge buffer zone and establish four separate viewing areas. This rule is necessary to provide for the safety of life on the navigable waters immediately before, during, and after a fireworks display on a highly congested waterway. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective from 5:30 p.m. on July 4 through 11:30 p.m. on July 5, 2025. It will only be subject to enforcement, however, during the hours of 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on July 4, or, in the event the fireworks display is postponed due to inclement weather or other causes, from 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on July 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 USCG-2025-0257 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 this rule, call or email Lieutenant Junior Grade Rebecca Fitzgerald-Smith, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 718-801-2932, email <E T="03">Rebecca.R.Fitzgerald-Smith@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 New York</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">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> July 4, 2025, marks the 49th anniversary of the annual Macy's 4th of July fireworks. The firework launch barges have changed location throughout the years between the Hudson River, East River, and the Lower East River. Three years ago on June 21, 2022, the Captain of the Port, Sector New York (COTP) created a Final Rule titled, “Special Local Regulation; East River 4th of July Fireworks, New York, NY” which was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 36763) June 21, 2022. That rule, codified at 33 CFR 100.110, established a special local regulation on the navigable waters of the East River and New York Harbor, New York, NY for vessel management in the vicinity of the Macy's 4th of July fireworks barges. The 2022 Macy's 4th of July Fireworks occurred without incident. On February 18, 2025, Macy's Inc. notified the Coast Guard that it desires to conduct their 4th of July fireworks display in 2025 at a different location on the Lower East River and Upper Bay. Because of the location change this year, we are promulgating this temporary rule rather than using the permanent rule at 33 CFR 100.110, which will not be subject to enforcement this year. The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary 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 it is impractical to do so due to insufficient time to publish a final rule by July 4. 33 CFR 100.110, titled “East River 4th of July Fireworks, East River, Manhattan, NY” establishes a permanent special local regulation, which is enforced annually on July 4, from 5:30 p.m. through 11:30 p.m. In the event the fireworks display is postponed due to inclement weather or other causes, it would be enforced on July 5, from 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. 33 CFR 100.110 is suspended from 5:30 p.m. on July 4, 2025, until 11:30 p.m. on July 5, 2025, due to this special local regulation. <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 Captain of the Port Sector New York (COTP) has determined that this rule is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in the navigable waters within the regulated areas to ensure the safety of spectators and vessels from hazards associated with the fireworks display. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a special local regulation subject to enforcement from 5:30 p.m. through 11:30 p.m. on July 4, 2025, with July 5, 2025, from 5:30 p.m. through 11:30 p.m. being a contingency date. This special local regulation creates five regulated areas: a buffer zone around each firework display barge and four viewing areas. As shown in the illustration below, the buffer zone, area “C,” will exclude all nonparticipating vessels from the area surrounding the barges immediately before, during, and after the display. The four separate viewing areas, areas “A,” “B,” “D,” and “E,” will separate vessels based on the vessels' length and timing of entry into each zone. Vessels desiring to utilize ALPHA (“A”), BRAVO (“B”), or ECHO (“E”) limited access areas must enter the area by 7:30 p.m. Vessels desiring to utilize DELTA (“D”) may begin entering the designated viewing area at 8:00 p.m. and must be in a holding position no later than 9:00 p.m. <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="244"> <GID>ER13JN25.000</GID> </GPH> <FP>(Illustration showing locations of regulated areas)</FP> The duration of the enforcement times is intended to ensure the safety of vessels, participants, spectators, and those transiting the area during the fireworks display. Navigation rules, 33 CFR part 83, will apply at all times within the areas. The Coast Guard will provide notice of the special local regulation by Local Notice to Mariners, Broadcast Notice to Mariners, and on-scene designated representatives. <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, this rule has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the special local regulation's size, location, and duration. In addition, although this rule restricts access to the waters encompassed by the special local regulation, the effect of this rule will not be significant because the local waterway users will be notified in advance via a public Broadcast Notice to Mariners and Local Notice to Mariners. The entities most likely affected are commercial vessels and pleasure crafts engaged in recreational activities. <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 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 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 relat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━