Security Zone; Intracoastal Waterway, Palm Beach, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0319]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA87</RIN> <SUBJECT>Security Zone; Intracoastal Waterway, Palm Beach, FL</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 change the enforcement of an existing security zone that encompasses certain waters of the Atlantic Ocean near the Mar-A-Lago Club and the Southern Boulevard Bridge in Palm Beach, FL. When the “East Zone” is activated all persons and vessels will be prohibited from entering, transiting, anchoring in, or remaining within the security zone unless authorized by the COTP Miami or a designated representative. This action is necessary to protect the official party, public, and surrounding waterways from terrorist acts, sabotage or other subversive acts, accidents, or other events of a similar nature. 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 August 11, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0319 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 Lieutenant Guerschom Etienne, Waterways Management Division, Coast Guard; telephone: 786-295-9051, email: <E T="03">Guerschom.Etienne@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, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> On April 19, 2018, the Coast Guard established a security zone around Mar-a-Lago Club in 33 CFR 165.785 to ensure the safety of the president, official party, and any other persons under the protection of the secret service at his residence. The security zone in § 165.785 consists of 3 zones with varying levels of security within the Intracoastal Waterway and Atlantic Ocean adjacent to this location. The Coast Guard is proposing to change the enforcement of the existing “East Zone” in Mar-a-Lago due to the high concentration of vessel traffic in the immediate area. Increased security restrictions have been deemed necessary to ensure that no vessel inadvertently enters the “East Zone” without prior authorization from the Captain of the Port (COTP) or designated representative. The restrictions for entering and transiting the waterway already for the “East Zone” would be bolstered and only enforced when the President of the United States, members of the First Family, or other persons under the protection of the Secret Service are present or expected to be present. Pending going through the normal rulemaking process to amend the enforcement of the “East Zone,” the Coast Guard published a temporary interim rule and request for comments, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> which expires on July 17, 2025. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The temporary interim rule and request for comments was published on April 11, 2025 (90 FR 15409). Comments close on May 12, 2025. </FTNT> The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70054 and 70124. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to change the enforcement of the “East Zone” security zone, which is located on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean near the Mar-a-Lago Cub and the Southern Boulevard Bridge in Palm Beach, FL. When the “East Zone” is activated, the Coast Guard proposes to amend § 165.785(c)(3) by stating, “All persons and vessels are prohibited from entering, transiting, anchoring in, or remaining within the security zone unless authorized by the COTP Miami or a designated representative.” The current regulation in § 165.785(c)(3) states, “All persons and vessels are required to transit the security zone at a steady speed and may not slow down or stop except in the case of unforeseen mechanical failure or other emergency. Any persons or vessels forced to slow or stop in the zone shall immediately notify the COTP Miami via VHF channel 16.” The proposed change would ensure the safety of the president, official party, and any other persons under the protection of the secret service at his residence. No other change would be made to § 165.785. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <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 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 NPRM 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 conditions already present in this waterway since the initial establishment of the security zone. The security restrictions on the zone, though slightly more restrictive on vessel traffic, will greatly enhance protections of people under the protection of the Secret Service. <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 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. 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 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 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 call or email 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━