Safety Zone; Gulf of America; Sand Key Beach, Clearwater, FL

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0274]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zone; Gulf of America; Sand Key Beach, Clearwater, FL</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary safety zone for certain waters of Sand Key Beach, during the Clearwater AquaX Grand Prix event. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near Clearwater, FL, during a high-speed jet ski race. This rule prohibits persons and vessels from being in the safety zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector St. Petersburg or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective daily from 8:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., on August 23, 2025, through August 24, 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-2025-0274 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 Lieutenant Ryan McNaughton, Sector St. Petersburg Ports & Waterways Branch Chief, U. S. Coast Guard; telephone (571) 608-7131, email <E T="03">Ryan.A.McNaughton@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> On January 30, 2025, an organization notified the Coast Guard that it will be conducting a jet ski race on August 23, 2025, and August 24, 2025, near Sand Key Beach, Clearwater, FL. The Captain of the Port (COTP) Sector St. Petersburg has determined that potential hazards associated with high-speed races would be a safety concern for anyone within the designated racecourse area. The purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of vessels and the navigable waters within the racecourse, before, during, and after the scheduled event. The Coast Guard is enforcing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. In response, on June 11, 2025, the Coast Guard published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) titled NPRM Clearwater AquaX Grand Prix (90 FR 24765). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this marine event. During the comment period that ended July 14, 2025, we received 1 comment. 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 high-speed jet ski race. <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. 70034. The Captain of the Port Sector St Petersburg (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated the high-speed race. The purpose of this rule is to ensure safety of vessels and the navigable waters in the safety zone before, during, and after the scheduled event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes, and the Rule</HD> As noted above, we received 1 comment on our NPRM published June 11, 2025. The comment was unrelated to the rule. There are no changes in the regulatory text of this rule from the proposed rule in the NPRM. This rule establishes a safety zone from August 23, 2025, to August 24, 2025. The safety zone will cover all navigable waters within the vicinity of Sand Key Beach, Clearwater, FL. The duration of the zone is intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters before, during, and after the event. 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, duration and time of day of the regulated area. Vessel traffic will not be impacted because the event occurs directly off the coast. Moreover, the Coast Guard would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the zone, and the rule would allow vessels to seek permission to enter 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 received 00 comments from the Small Business Administration on this rulemaking. 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 o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 13k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━