Special Local Regulation; Clinch River, Oak Ridge, TN

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0410]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Clinch River, Oak Ridge, TN</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 certain waters of the Clinch River. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near Oak Ridge, TN, during a regatta from December 12 through December 13, 2025. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the regulated area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley or a designated representative. 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 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0410 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 Petty Officer Third Class Zachary T. Epps and MSD Nashville Waterways Department, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone +1 (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> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ORRA Oak Ridge Rowing Association</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USCG United States Coast Guard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> The Oak Ridge Rowing Association (ORRA) notified the United States Coast Guard (USCG) that it will be conducting a rowing regatta from 12 p.m. through 4 p.m. on both December 12, 2025, and December 13, 2025. The regatta will take place on the Clinch River from mile marker 49.5 to 52. The Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with the regatta would be a safety concern for anyone within the special local regulation. The purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of vessels and the navigable waters within Clinch River Mile Markers 49.5-52 before, during, and after the scheduled event. The USCG is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish a special local regulation that would be enforced from 12 p.m. through 4 p.m. on both December 12, 2025, and December 13, 2025. The regulated area would cover all navigable waters of the Clinch River between mile markers 49.5 to 52. The duration of the zone is intended to ensure the safety of participating vessels, the public, and these navigable waters before, during, and after the scheduled regatta. No vessel or person would be permitted to enter the regulated area 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 analysis based on the 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. The event will be on the Clinch River which has little commercial traffic, and during a time of year when recreational traffic will be minimal. The regulation will also only be enforced for four hours per day, over two days. Moreover, the Coast Guard would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the zone, and the rulemaking would allow vessels to seek permission to enter the zone. 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 consistent with the fundamental federalism principles and preemption requirements described in Executive Order 13132. Also, this proposed rule does not have tribal implications under Executive Order 13175 (Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments) because it would 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. If you believe this proposed rule has implications for federalism or Indian tribes, please call or email the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <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 proposed rule would not result in such an expenditure, we do discuss the potential effects of this proposed rule elsewhere in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Environment</HD> We have analyzed this proposed 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 made a preliminary determination 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 proposed rule involves a special local regulation lasting four hours per day, over the course of two days, that would prohibit entry within a 2.5 mile stretch of the Clinch River. Normally such actions are categorically excluded from further review under paragraph L61 of Appendix A, Table 1 of DHS Instruction Manual 023-01-001-01, Rev. 1. A preliminary Record of Environmental Consideration supporting this determination is available in the docket. For instructions on locating the docket, see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this preamble. We seek any comments or information that may lead to the discovery of a significant environmental impact from this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Public Participation and Request for Comments</HD> We view public participation as essential to effective rulemaking and will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. Your comment can help shape the outcome of this rulemaking. If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this rulemaking, indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. <E T="03">Submitting comments.</ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━