Special Local Regulation; Galveston Channel, Galveston, TX

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0586]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Galveston Channel, Galveston, TX</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 special local regulation for the safety of life on certain waters of the Galveston Channel in Galveston County, TX. These regulations would be enforced during a boat parade which will be held annually, on the 3rd Saturday in September. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit entry of non-participants into the regulated area unless specifically authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Houston-Galveston (COTP) or designated representative. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before August 18, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0586 using the Federal Docket Management System 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 Ignacio J. Fernández-Cuervo, Marine Safety Unit Texas City, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone (281) 309-1617, email <E T="03">MSUTexasCityWaterways@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, Sector Houston-Galveston</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">PATCOM Patrol Commander</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> Coast Guard regulations define “regatta or marine parade” as an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule. 33 CFR 100.05(a). And, as explained in 33 CFR 100.15, the Coast Guard requires that an organization planning to hold a regatta or marine event apply for a permit if the event, by its nature, circumstances, or location, will introduce extra or unusual hazards to the safety of life on the navigable waters of the United States. Upon the approval of an application, under 33 CFR 100.35(a), the COTP may promulgate such “Special Local Regulations” (SLR's) as he or she deems necessary to ensure safety of life on the navigable waters immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the event. Texian Navy submitted a marine event permit application in 2024 for a boat parade, and the event was permitted by the Coast Guard with a temporary SLR created for the event (which expired after the event completion). Texian Navy submitted a new marine event permit application again in 2025 and expressed intent to submit applications annually to hold event on the same day (third Saturday in September). We are proposing to incorporate the SLR into a permanent rule for these recurring events (33 CFR 100.801). This rule would not expire, but it would only be subject to enforcement during periods when the events are taking place. The Coast Guard would supplement the rule each year, when an application for the current year's event is approved, with a Notification of Enforcement providing specific information about enforcement times. The regulated area for the event consists of a pre-staging area along the east end of Seawolf Park, a designated spectator zone east of Galveston Yacht Marina along the ship channel and a Parade transit zone starting in the east end of the Galveston Channel through terminal 10 and back. Among the hazards the event poses include a risk of collisions between event participants operating within or adjacent to the navigation channel designated for the event, and non-participants traveling through the channel, or within approaches to local marinas, boat facilities, and waterfront residential communities. The COTP has determined that the potential hazards associated with the boat parade would be a safety concern for anyone intending to participate in this event, and for vessels that operate within specified waters of the Galveston Channel. The purpose of this rulemaking is to protect event participants, non-participants, and transiting vessels before, during, and after the scheduled event. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under the authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. The proposed enforcement periods and the size of the regulated area were chosen to ensure the safety of life on these navigable waters before, during, and after activities associated with the boat parade. As provided in 33 CFR 100.801, the Coast Guard would provide annual notice of the overall enforcement periods and periods of enforcement of particular zones within the regulated area in the Coast Guard Heartland District Local Notice to Mariners, and issue a marine information broadcast on VHF-FM marine band radio announcing specific event dates and times. Consistent with 33 CFR 100.35(a), the COTP and the Coast Guard Event PATCOM would have authority to forbid or control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in the regulated area. When hailed or signaled by an official patrol, a vessel or person in the regulated area would be required to immediately comply with the directions given by the COTP or Event PATCOM, as is now provided in 33 CFR 100.501(d). If a person or vessel fails to follow such directions, the Coast Guard may expel them from the area, issue them a citation for failure to comply, or both. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP proposes to establish a special local regulation which may be subject to enforcement every year on the third Saturday in September. This proposed rule would modify 33 CFR 100.801 by listing a new recurring marine event in Table 3 of § 100.801, which covers the Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston COTP Zone. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. The regulated area created by this rule would encompass three zones to include a Pre-Staging Zone, Spectator Zone, and Parade Transit Zone as described below: <E T="03">Pre-Staging Zone:</E> This area is the pre-staging area for participating vessels to line up. It will include all waters within a 200-yard radius of 29°20′23″ N, 094°46′37″ W. <E T="03">Spectator Zone:</E> All vessels that will be viewing the event will be required to stay within a designated area. The sponsor is responsible for marking the spectator zone with four buoys on the outer corners and ensuring that all vessels within the area are anchored and remain in the area during parade transit. The following coordinates are the approximate location of the Spectator Zone: 29°19′17″ N, 094°46′36″ W, thence to 29°19′37″ N, 094°46′53″ W, and both points connecting to the eastern shore. <E T="03">Parade Transit Zone:</E> This area is exclusive to vessels participating in the parade. It will include all waters within the following areas: 29°19′07.02″ N, 094°47′10.98″ W, thence to 29°18′55.43″ N, 094°47′04.23″ W, thence to 29°20′29.45″ N, 094°46′14.18″ W, thence to 29°20′32.68″ N, 094°46′29.94″ W, and along the shore line back to the beginning point. A person or vessel not registered with the event sponsor as a participant or assigned as official patrols would be considered a spectator. A spectator vessel must not loiter within the navigable channel while within the regulated area. Official patrol vessels would direct spectators to the designated spectator zone. Official Patrols are any vessel assigned or approved by the Commander, Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston with a commissioned, warrant, or petty officer onboard and displaying a Coast Guard ensign. Official Patrols enforcing this regulated area can be contacted on VHF-FM channel 12. All non-participants will be prohibited from entering the established pre-staging and parade transit zones without obtaining permission from the on-water Safety Officer or designated representative. To seek permission to enter, contact the COTP or the COTP's representative by VHF Radio Channel 12. Those in the regulated area must comply with all lawful orders or directions given to them by the COTP or the designated representative. The term “designated representative” means Coast Guard Patrol Commanders, including Coast Guard coxswains, petty officers, and other officers operating Coast Guard vessels, and Federal, state, and local officers designated by or assisting the Captain of the Port Houston-Galveston in the enforcement of the regulated areas. <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 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) direct ag ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━