Special Local Regulation; Tennessee River, Florence, Alabama

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0651]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Tennessee River, Florence, Alabama</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 special local regulation for certain waters of the Tennessee River. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near Florence, AL, during a rowing event on September 27, 2025. This regulation prohibits persons and vessels from being in the safety zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective from 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. on September 27, 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-2025-0651 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 Petty Officer, Zachary T. Epps, and MSD Nashville, Waterways division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone (206) 815-7006, email <E T="03">MSDNashville@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> 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 to waive prior notice and public comment for this temporary final rule. A permanent annual special local regulation for this event has already been published in the Code of Federal Regulations at 33 CFR 100.801 Table 1, Line 95. However, this action is necessary to accommodate the event's shift to an earlier date in September, rather than the event's usual date in October, making it impracticable to conduct a full notice and comment period before the event's scheduled occurrence this year. <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 Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with Shoals Scholar Dollar occurring on September 27, 2025, will be a safety concern for anyone within Tennessee River Mile Marker 255 to 257 due to the occurrence of this paddleboat event. This rule is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in the navigable waters within the special local regulation while the regatta is in progress. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> This rule establishes a temporary special local regulation from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on September 27, 2025. The special local regulation will cover all navigable waters between Tennessee River Mile Marker 255 to 257. The duration of the special local regulation is intended to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment in these navigable waters during the regatta. No vessel or person will be permitted to enter the regulated area without first obtaining permission from the COTP or their 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 analysis based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. 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 affects 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">B. 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">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 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">D. 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">E. 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 of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321-4370f), and have determined that this action is one of a category of actions that do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment. This rule involves special local regulation lasting only 8 hours that will prohibit entry within Tennessee River Mile Markers 255 to 257 for the Shoals Scholar Dollar. It is categorically excluded from further review under paragraph L61 of Appendix A, Table 1 of DHS Instruction Manual 023-01-001-01, Rev. 1. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 33 CFR Part 100</HD> Marine safety, Navigation (water), Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Waterways. </LSTSUB> For the reasons stated in the preamble, the Coast Guard amends 33 CFR part 100 as set forth below: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 100—SAFETY OF LIFE ON NAVIGABLE WATERS</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="33" PART="100"> 1. The authority citation for part 100 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 46 U.S.C. 70041; 33 CFR 1.05-1. </REGTEXT> <REGTEXT TITLE="33" PART="100"> 2. Add § 100.T899-0651 to read as follows: <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 100.T899-0651</SECTNO> <SUBJECT> Tennessee River Mile Markers, Florence, AL.</SUBJECT> (a) <E T="03">Regulated area.</E> The regulations in this section apply to the following area: all waters of the Tennessee River from Mile Marker 255 to 257. (b) <E T="03">Definitions.</E> As used in this section— <E T="03">Designated representative</E> means a Coast Guard Patrol Commander, including a Coast Guard coxswain, petty officer, or other officer operating a Coast Guard vessel and a Federal, State, and local officer designated by or assisting the Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley (COTP) in the enforcement of the regulations in this section. <E T="03">Participant</E> means all persons and vessels registered with the event sponsor as a participant in the race. (c) <E T="03">Regulations.</E> (1) All non-participants are prohibited from entering, transiting through, anchoring in, or remaining within the regulated area described in paragraph ( ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 11k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━