Special Local Regulation; Casco Bay, Cow Island, Long Island, ME

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0519]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Casco Bay, Cow Island, Long Island, ME</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 for the navigable waters of Casco Bay, in the vicinity of Cow Island, ME, to support an offshore concert with spectator vessels. This regulation is needed to ensure the safety of spectators and mariners from risks associated with a large gathering on the water. The regulation will temporarily establish a spectator area and a safe access lane for transit and emergency response while also prohibiting swimming and creating a speed restriction/no wake zone. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective from 12:30 p.m. August 16, 2025, to 5:30 p.m. August 17, 2025. It will only be subject to enforcement, however, from 12:30 p.m. through 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 2025, unless the event is delayed because of weather conditions, in which case it may be subject to enforcement of those same hours on August 17, 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-2025-0519 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 proposed rulemaking, call or email, LT Amanda Barnett, Sector Northern New England, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 207-808-9137, email <E T="03">NNEWaterways@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, Northern New England</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> As an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule is a “Regatta or marine parade,” as defined at 33 CFR 100.05. An individual or organization planning to hold a regatta or marine parade which, 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, must submit an application to hold it. 33 CFR 100.15. On May 16, 2025, the event sponsor of the “Flotilla to Fight Cancer Benefit Concert” submitted an application under 33 CFR 100.15 to conduct the Fight Cancer Benefit Concert for approximately five hours on August 16, 2025, with a rain date of August 17, 2025. The offshore concert will take place in Casco Bay, on the Falmouth side of Cow Island, in the Town of Long Island, ME. After approving plans for the holding of a regatta or marine parade within his or her district or zone, a Captain of the Port (COTP) is authorized to promulgate such special local regulations (SLR) 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. Due to the high-profile nature of this event, spectator vessels and support craft that will be present and they will have the potential to cause vessel congestion in Casco Bay on the Falmouth side of Cow Island, in Long Island, ME. The COTP, Sector Northern New England has determined that potential hazards associated with the offshore concert and offshore concert location would be a safety concern for anyone within the concert area and adjacent navigable waters and is therefore establishing these SLRs. 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 it is impractical to do so due to insufficient time to publish a final rule by August 16, 2025. 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 because the rule must be in effect by August 16, 2025, to serve its intended purpose. <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. 70041. The COTP has determined that this rule is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from the hazards associated with the offshore concert event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary SLR for a one-day event from 12:30 p.m. through 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 2025, unless the event is delayed because of weather conditions in which case it will be subject to enforcement of those same hours on August 17, 2025. The regulated area, as shown below, in figure 1, starts at the point in position at 43°41′26″ N, 070°11′28″ W; then East along the coast of the Falmouth side of Cow Island to a point in position of 43°41′45″ N, 070°11′04″ W; then Northwest to a point in position of 43°41′53″ N, 070°11′18″ W; then Southeast to a point in position of 43°41′34″ N, 070°11′41″ W; and then to point of origin 43°41′26″ N, 070°11′28″ W expressed in Degrees (°) Minutes (′) Seconds (″) (DMS) based on North American Datum 1983 (NAD 83). The regulated area will mainly serve as a spectator zone but will also include two transit areas where stopping, fishing, mooring, anchoring, or loitering is prohibited at all times. The first transit area will run parallel to the concert stage barge, extending the entire length of the spectator zone, with a width of 240 feet. The second transit area will run down the center of the spectator area, perpendicular to the concert stage barge, with a width of 240 feet. These transit areas will allow vessels to enter and exit the spectator zone from all sides and provide access for emergency vessels. <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="266"> <GID>ER15AU25.012</GID> </GPH> The temporary SLR will prohibit swimming in the entire regulated area. Additionally, all vessels must follow a “Slow-No Wake” speed limit, meaning they cannot create a wake and cannot exceed speeds of five (5) knots unless a higher speed is needed to maintain control. This regulation is in place to ensure the safety of vessels and people before, during, and after the concert. <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 size, location, and duration and time-of-day of the event. This rule involves a special local regulation lasting approximately 5 hours (12:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m.) and impacting a certain area of Casco Bay, Cow Island, ME. Moreover, the Coast Guard will issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the regulated area. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The regulatory flexibility analysis provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, do not apply to rules not subject to notice and comment. As the Coast Guard has, for good cause, waived the notice and comment requirement that would otherwise apply to this rulemaking, the Regulatory Flexibility Act's flexibility analysis provisions do not apply here. 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, c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━