Security Zone; Intracoastal Waterway, Palm Beach, FL

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0690]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Security Zone; Intracoastal Waterway, Palm Beach, FL</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 security zone on the waters of the Lake Worth Lagoon, Intracoastal Waterway, and Atlantic Ocean near the Mar-A-Lago Club and the Southern Boulevard Bridge in Palm Beach, Florida (FL). This rule is substantially like the “east zone” security zone published elsewhere in the Coast Guard's regulations. The Coast Guard will only enforce this rule 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. 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. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective without actual notice from July 29, 2025, through September 30, 2025. For purposes of enforcement, actual notice will be used from July 21, 2025, through July 29, 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-2025-0690 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 on this rule, call or email Lieutenant Guerschom Etienne, Waterways Management Division, Sector Miami, U.S. 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">COTP Captain of the Port</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 final rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment pursuant to 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 necessary to immediately implement enhanced security protections of presidential and VIP personnel in and around this portion of the waterway. It is impracticable to publish an NPRM because we must establish this security zone as soon as practicable. 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 would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest because because prompt action is needed to enhance the security protections of presidential and VIP personnel present in the vicinity of this waterway. <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. 70051 and 70124. The Captain of the Port (COTP) Miami has determined the security zone 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. This temporary final rule is needed to ensure the security of vessels and navigable waters during visits to the Mar-a-Lago Club by the President, the First Family, and other persons under the protection of the Secret Service. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> This temporary final rule establishes a security zone from July 21, 2025, through September 30, 2025. The security zone will overlap with the already existing “east zone” in 33 CFR 165.785. 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. This section will be 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 at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida until September 30, 2025. The duration of the zone is intended to ensure the safety of the President of the United States, members of the First Family, or other persons under the protection of the Secret Service. The Coast Guard will notify the public and local mariners of this safety zone through appropriate means, which may include, but are not limited to, Broadcast Notice to Mariners via marine Channel 16 (VHF-FM). Coast Guard patrol assets will also be on-scene with flashing energized blue lights the security zone is in effect. <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 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: (1) This security zone impacts only a small area of the Lake Worth Lagoon, Intracoastal Waterway, and Atlantic Ocean near the Mar-A-Lago Club and the Southern Boulevard Bridge in Palm Beach, Florida (FL). (2) The security zone will be enforced only 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 at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida until September 30, 2025. (3) Vessel traffic will be permitted to transit the area at other times. (4) The rule allows vessels to seek permission from the COTP to transit the zone. <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 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. 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 trib ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━