Safety Zone; Beltway 8 Bridge Construction, Houston Ship Channel, Houston, TX

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0643]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zone; Beltway 8 Bridge Construction, Houston Ship Channel, Houston, 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 temporary safety zone for certain navigable waters of the Houston Ship Channel around the Beltway 8 Bridge (Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge), during bridge construction and demolition activities. The temporary safety zone is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by constructing a new bridge. Entry of vessels or persons into this zone is prohibited unless specifically authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Houston-Galveston. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before October 14, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0643 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 Marine Science Technician Chief Petty Officer Anthony W. Booth, Sector Houston-Galveston Waterway Management Division, Coast Guard; Telephone (713) 398-5823, Email <E T="03">houstonwwm@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, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> On July 24, 2025, construction of the new Beltway 8 Bridge (Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge) started over the navigable waters of the Houston Ship Channel. The Coast Guard previously published a short-term temporary safety zone to cover the initial phase of this construction, which covers only a small area along the north and south shorelines around the bridge (90 FR 35438, July 28, 2025). That safety zone expires on October 22, 2025, and a long-term safety zone is necessary to provide for safety during the remainder of the construction and demolition project. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. The construction of the new Southbound and Northbound lanes, and demolition of the old Beltway 8 Bridge (Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge) are estimated to be complete around March 2030. The Captain of the Port Sector Houston-Galveston (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with construction over the ship channel will be a safety concern for anyone transiting under the bridge. Hazards associated with this project include falling construction equipment, materials or other debris. The purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of vessels and the navigable waters during the construction of the new Beltway 8 Bridge (Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge). While this zone will be in effect for several years, the Coast Guard anticipates that the main navigable channel of the Houston Ship Channel will remain open for the majority of the time, and impact on vessel navigation will be minimal. During the times of overhead construction outside of the federal channel, vessels will be allowed to transit under the bridge only within the federal channel. The channel will be closed for a short period when the construction or demolition is actively occurring over the main federal channel, and these closures will be coordinated between stakeholders, the construction contractor and Sector Houston-Galveston. The Coast Guard will work closely with the project managers to ensure the public and waterway users are notified well in advance of any closure that will prohibit vessel navigation on the main channel. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish a temporary safety zone from October 22, 2025 to March 1, 2030. The temporary safety zone would cover all navigable waters within the following four points on the north and south shore of the Houston Ship Channel around the Beltway 8 Bridge (Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge) overhead construction: from the southeast corner at Point 1 at 29°44.033′ N 95°8.733′ W; thence west to Point 2 at 29°44.100′ N 95°8.833′ W; thence north to Point 3 at 29°44.267′ N 95°8.817′ W; thence east to Point 4 at 29°44.267′ N 95°8.717′ W; thence returning south to Point 1. The duration of the zone is intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters from hazards associated with bridge construction and demolition. While this area spans the width of the Houston Ship Channel, the safety zone will only be enforced in certain portions within this area where overhead construction is occurring. For most of the time this safety zone is effective, vessels will be permitted to transit through this area using the main navigation channel under the bridge. Vessel traffic will not be allowed to transit underneath where overhead construction is actively taking place, and small vessels will not be allowed to transit under the bridge outside of the main federal channel during construction. Vessel traffic on the main federal channel under the center of the bridge will be closed for a short period when the construction is actively occurring over this area. Closures will be coordinated between stakeholders, the construction contractor and Sector Houston-Galveston. No vessel or person would be permitted to enter the temporary safety zone without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <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. 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 proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities for the following reasons. During the times of overhead construction outside of the federal channel, vessels will be allowed to transit under the bridge only within the federal channel. The channel will be closed for a short period when the construction or demolition is actively occurring over the main federal channel, and these closures will be coordinated between stakeholders, the construction contractor and Sector Houston-Galveston. The Coast Guard will work closely with the project managers to ensure the public and waterway users are notified well in advance of any closure that will prohibit vessel navigation on the main channel. While this zone will be in effect for several years, the Coast Guard (CG) anticipates that the main navigable channel will remain open for the majority of the effective period. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect it. 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 proposed rule. If the proposed 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. The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this proposed rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Collection of Information</HD> This proposed rule would not call for a new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. 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 proposed rule under that Order and have determined that it is con ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━