Special Local Regulation; 100th Annual Pony Swim, Chincoteague Inlet and Surrounding Waters, Sector Virginia Captain of the Port Zone

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0463]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; 100th Annual Pony Swim, Chincoteague Inlet and Surrounding Waters, Sector Virginia Captain of the Port Zone</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 is proposing to establish a temporary Special Local Regulation on the waters around Assateague, Chincoteague, and Wallops Islands. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters from potential hazards during the week of the 100th Annual Pony Roundup, Swim & Auction. All non-participants would be prohibited from entering, transiting through, anchoring in, or remaining within the regulated area without permission from the Captain of the Port or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before June 30, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0463 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 for further 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 about this proposed rulemaking, call or email LCDR Justin Strassfield, Sector Virginia, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard, Telephone: (571) 608-2969; or <E T="03">virginiawaterways@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia</FP> <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">SLR Special Local Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> A Captain of the Port, after approving plans for the holding of a “regatta or marine parade” (an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule, 33 CFR 100.05(a)) within his or her Captain of the Port 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. Each year, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company notifies the Coast Guard that it will be conducting a pony round up and auction which requires closure of the Assateague Channel for a “pony swim,” the passage of the animals from Assateague Island to Chincoteague Island and submits a permit under 33 CFR 100.15. To provide for the closure of the Assateague Channel and to reserve sufficient space to designate spectator areas around the event, a permanent Special Local Regulation (SLR) was created in table 3 to paragraph (i)(3) to 33 CFR 100.501 to support this recurring Permitted Marine Event. This year's event is the 100th of its kind and it is therefore expected to draw many more spectators than in previous years. Due to the expected increased number of spectators, increased vessel traffic, and an increased population on and around Chincoteague Island, the Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia (COTP) has determined this year's event will present safety concerns over a significantly larger area than the regulated area of the permanent SLR. We are therefore proposing this temporary rule to allow for supervision over a larger area and more specific traffic control measures than the permanent regulation covers. The Coast Guard is proposing this rule under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish an SLR which would be in effect and subject to enforcement from 6 a.m. on July 26th, 2025 to 10 p.m. on August 1, 2025. The SLR would create a buffer zone, a neutral area that surrounds the perimeter of the regulated area, covering all navigable waters within the boundary of a perimeter drawn from points: 37 57′ N, 075 27′ W; 37 57′ N, 075 21′ W; 37 52′ N, 075 21′ W; 37 52′ N, 075 27′ W. It would extend to persons and vessels transiting through the waters around Chincoteague Island, Assateague Island and the North shores of Wallops Island, on the week of the event. This proposed rulemaking would prevent persons and vessels from impacting the movement of emergency services in the regulated area and provide traffic control measures in the buffer zone when directed by the COTP or a designated representative. The proposed enforcement period for the rule and the size of the special local regulation's regulated area and buffer zone have been chosen to ensure the safety of life on these navigable waters before, during, and after the scheduled multi-day event. The rule would allow vessels to operate using conventional navigational rules within the buffer zone unless unsafe conditions or vessel concentrations are identified. The COTP and Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander (PATCOM) would, however, control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in the buffer zone and regulated area, and could forbid such movement, as warranted by the circumstances. Because unsafe conditions are most likely to occur in the vicinity of channel narrowing bridges, and because the proper functioning the roadways into and out of the island will be significantly impacted by the increase in vessels attending the event, specific regulations around the movement of vessels around bridges has been prescribed within the regulation. These will be broadcast during the week of the event to aid in managing the congestion expected. The Coast Guard would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the enforcement of the SLR. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. We are providing a comment period of 14 days on the assumption we will have enough time to receive comments, consider them, make any appropriate changes, and publish a temporary final rule by July 26, 2025, when the event begins. <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 analysis based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) 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. Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not designated this rule a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, OMB has not reviewed it. This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, duration, and time-of-day of the SLR. Vessel traffic would be able to safely transit normally though this buffer zone and regulated area during the evenings, when vessel traffic is normally low. Moreover, within the buffer zone, beyond the immediate vicinity of the Pony Swim, the Coast Guard will only be controlling traffic when there are unsafe concentrations of marine traffic, or where the concentration of marine traffic would impact the safe transit of emergency services. <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 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 safety zone 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. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed 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 (Pub. L. 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 concerni ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━