Safety Zone; Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project, Hampton/Norfolk, VA

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-1069]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zone; Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project, Hampton/Norfolk, VA</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing a temporary rule to provide for safety zones for certain waters near Norfolk Harbor Entrance Reach, near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel expansion project. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on navigable waters which are subject to existing safety zones that will expire later this month. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from entering or occupying the safety zones unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia or a designated representative or under conditions specified in this rulemaking. We invite your comments. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before December 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To submit comments and view available documents, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for USCG-2025-1069. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rule, contact LCDR Justin Z. Strassfield, Sector Virginia Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; by phone, at (206) 815-7367, or by email, at <E T="03">VirginiaWayerways@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—U.S. Coast Guard Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS—Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR—Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HRBT—Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HRCP—Hampton Roads Connector Partners</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM—Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NSRA—Navigation Safety Risk Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ —Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C.—United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USCG—United States Coast Guard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USACE—United States Army Corps of Engineers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">VDOT—Virginia Department of Transportation</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background and Authority</HD> On September 16, 2021, after providing notice and an opportunity to comment, the Coast Guard promulgated a temporary rule entitled “Safety Zones; Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project, Hampton/Norfolk, VA.” See 86 FR 51612. Although the Coast Guard did not receive any comments within the comment period, the rule was preceded by a formal Navigational Safety Risk Assessment and by a series of outreach meetings held jointly by the Coast Guard and the Hampton Roads Connector Partners (HRCP), the Design-Build contactor for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion Project. See <E T="03">https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2021-20006/p-19</E> for additional details about the project and the earlier rulemaking. The 2021 rule, which is codified at 33 CFR 165.519, will expire on December 25, 2025. As substantial work needs to be done to complete the HRBT expansion project, we are now proposing a new temporary rule with a different citation which would provide for safety zones in the current safety zone locations for up to 5 more years, until December 20th of 2030. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The proposed rule would create safety zones which would be identical to those now codified at 33 CFR 165.519 and described at 86 FR 51612 except that the new rule, would have a different citation, a different expiration date, additional means of contacting the designated representatives, and a provision stating that, in the event the rule, or individual safety zones are no longer necessary, the COTP would provide notice that the rule, or any individual safety zones established by the rule, were no longer subject to enforcement. The full proposed regulatory text 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. Section 605 of the RFA allows an agency to certify a rule, in lieu of preparing an analysis, if the rulemaking is not expected to have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 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. The Coast Guard is aware that there are some small entities who operate commercial fishing vessels that did fish and set traps in some of the proposed safety zones. There is a possibility that for a very small number of entities the economic impact of this proposed rule caused by exclusion from the safety zone areas they typically fish could constitute an economic impact. However, the Coast Guard concludes that the number of small entities significantly affected would not be substantial given the areas that vessels would be excluded from has already been closed to them for over 4 years. 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 proposed rule would economically affect it. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), if this proposed rule will affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions, contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Small businesses may send comments to the Small Business and Agriculture Regulatory Enforcement Ombudsman and the Regional Small Business Regulatory Fairness Boards by calling 1-888-REG-FAIR (1-888-734-3247). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Collection of Information</HD> This proposed 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> We have analyzed this proposed rule under Executive Order 13132, Federalism, and have determined that it is consistent with the fundamental federalism principles and preemption requirements described in that Order. Also, this proposed 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> As required by The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1531-1538), the Coast Guard certifies that this proposed rule will not result in an annual expenditure of $100,000,000 or more (adjusted for inflation) by a State, local, or tribal government, in the aggregate, or by the private sector. <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 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 proposed rule is a safety zone. It is categorically excluded from further review under paragraph L60(a) of Appendix A, Table 1 of DHS Instruction Manual 023-01-001-01, Rev. 1. A Record of Environmental Consideration supporting this determination is available in the docket. <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.</E> We encourage you to submit comments through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> To do so, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> type USCG-2025-1069 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, look for this document in the Search Results column, and click on it. Then click on the Comment option. If you cannot submit your material by using <E T="03">https://www.regulations.go ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━