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

<RULE> 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> Temporary final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary Special Local Regulation on the waters around Assateague, Chincoteague, and Wallops Islands, on Virginia's Eastern Shore. 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 intermittently 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. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective from 6 a.m. on July 26, 2025, through 10 p.m. on August 1, 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-USCG-2025-0463 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 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 Information and Regulatory History</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. This year, like each previous year, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company notified the Coast Guard that it will be conducting a pony round up and auction. This requires closure of the Assateague Channel for a “pony swim,” the passage of the animals from Assateague Island to Chincoteague Island, and the sponsor submitted a permit application under 33 CFR 100.15, as it has in previous years. To provide for the closure of the Assateague Channel and to reserve sufficient space to designate spectator areas around the event, a permanent 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 attract 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. In response, on June 16, 2025, the Coast Guard published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) titled Special Local Regulation; 100th Annual Pony Swim, Chincoteague Inlet and Surrounding Waters, Sector Virginia Captain of the Port Zone. There, we stated why we issued the NPRM and we invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this marine event. During the comment period that ended June 30, 2025, we received no comments. 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 immediate action is needed to respond to the potential safety hazards associated with the increased vessel traffic and associated navigational hazards connected with the channel closure, due to occur less than 30 days after this rule is published. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under the authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. The Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with increased concentration of vessels associated with the marine event starting on July 26th and lasting until August 1st. will be a safety concern for persons and property within the Outer Area described within this rule. The purpose of this rule is to ensure safety of vessels and the navigable waters in the Outer Area before, during, and after the scheduled event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes, and the Rule</HD> As noted above, we received no comments on our NPRM published June 16th, 2025. However, we have assessed that the use of the terms “Buffer Zone” and “Regulated Area,” as defined in the NPRM may be confusing. We have therefore substituted the term “Outer Area” for what we had referred to as the “Buffer Zone” in the NPRM, and we have substituted the term “Inner Area” for what we had referred to in the NPRM as the “Regulated Area.” In this final rule, the term “Regulated Area” refers to the “Inner Area” and the “Outer Area” combined. These changes in terminology do not affect the intended operation of the rule. This rule therefore establishes a temporary SLR with a “Regulated Area” consisting of an “Inner Area” and an “Outer Area.” The SLR will be in effect and subject to enforcement twenty-four hours a day, starting at 6 a.m. on July 26th, 2025 and ending at 10 p.m. on August 1, 2025. (This is in contrast to the permanent rule, which is in effect for two nonconsecutive days a year.) What we have defined as the “Inner Area” of this temporary SLR is the same geographic area as the entire “Regulated Area,” as defined in the permanent rule. The “Outer Area” consists of that portion the “Regulated Area” outside the “Inner Area.” The COTP and Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander (PATCOM) will control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in both portions of the regulated area, as warranted by the circumstances, and may forbid movement within the Inner Area. The Inner Area includes all navigable waters encompassed by a boundary line connecting the following four points beginning 37 57′ N, 075 27′ W; then to 37 57′ N, 075 21′ W; thence to 37 52′ N, 075 21′ W; then to 37 52′ N, 075 27′ W and back to the beginning point, and provide a regulated area centered on the area within the Outer Area at the where the channel closure is planned between Assateague and Chincoteague Island. The duration of the zone is intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters before, during, and after marine event. No vessel or person will be permitted to enter the regulated area 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. The Coast Guard has determined it to be a nonsignificant regulatory action. This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, and duration of the SLR. In addition, we anticipate that vessel traffic would be able to safely transit normally though the entire regulated area during the evenings, when vessel traffic is usually low. (Non-participant vessels transiting through the Inner Area would have to request permission to transit the Inner Area, but we do not anticipate any reason to have to deny such requests during the evenings.) Moreover, within the Outer Area, 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-pro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━