Safety Zone; Little Potato Slough, Stockton, CA

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0657]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zone; Little Potato Slough, Stockton, CA</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 safety zone for navigable waters within a 100-yard radius of the vessels and machinery conducting operations at the site of the vessel CHALEUR in Little Potato Slough near Stockton, CA. The safety zone is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by salvage operations. Entry of vessels or persons into this zone is prohibited unless specifically authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector San Francisco. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective without actual notice from July 16, 2025 through 11 p.m. August 14, 2025. For the purposes of enforcement, actual notice will be used from 1 a.m. July 14, 2025 until July 16, 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-2025-0657 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 Ensign Saralyn Young, U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Francisco, Waterways Management; telephone 415-399-7443, email <E T="03">SFWaterways@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 Information and Regulatory History</HD> 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 the vessel CHALEUR is submerged within Little Potato Slough and the Coast Guard, which must oversee salvage operations, did not receive final details of the plan until July 8, 2025. It is impracticable to publish an NPRM because we must establish this safety zone by July 14, 2025. 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> . Delaying the effective date of this rule is impracticable because prompt action is needed to respond to the potential safety hazards associated with the salvage operations to begin on July 14, 2025. <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 (COTP) San Francisco has determined that potential hazards associated with the salvage operations of the vessel CHALEUR beginning July 14, 2025, will be a safety concern for anyone within a 100-yard radius of the barges and vessels in Little Potato Slough. This rule is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in the navigable waters within the safety zone during salvage operations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> This rule establishes a safety zone from 1 a.m. on July 14, 2025, until 11 p.m. on August 14, 2025. The safety zone will cover all navigable waters within 100 yards of vessels and machinery being used in the salvage operations of the vessel CHALEUR. The duration of the zone is intended to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in these navigable waters while the salvage operations are taking place. 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 (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, and duration of the safety zone. The amount of vessel traffic through Little Potato Slough during the duration of the zone is not anticipated to interfere with salvage operations. The Coast Guard will issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners about the safety zone to inform the public. <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 rule will 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 V.A above, this rule will not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. 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 will 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 does 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. <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 rule will not result in such an expenditure, we do discuss the effects of this rule elsewhere in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Environment</HD> We have analyzed this rule under Department of Homeland Security Directive 023-01, Rev. 1, associated implementing instructions, and Environmental Planning COMDTINST 5090.1 (series), which guide the Coast Guard in complying with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321-4370f), and have determined that this action is one of a category of actions that do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human env ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 13k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━