Amendment of Class E Airspace; Beeville, TX

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-5106; Airspace Docket No. 25-ASW-12]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amendment of Class E Airspace; Beeville, TX</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action amends the Class E airspace at Beeville, TX. This action is the result of an airspace review conducted due to the decommissioning of the Three Rivers very high frequency omnidirectional range (VOR) as part of the VOR Minimum Operational Network (MON) Program. This action brings the airspace into compliance with FAA orders and supports instrument flight rule (IFR) procedures and operations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective 0901 UTC, May 14, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approves this incorporation by reference action under 1 CFR part 51, subject to the annual revision of FAA Order JO 7400.11 and publication of conforming amendments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A copy of the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), all comments received, this final rule, and all background material may be viewed online at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the FAA Docket number. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are available on the website. It is available 24 hours each day, 365 days each year. An electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded from <E T="03">www.federalregister.gov.</E> FAA Order JO 7400.11K, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, and subsequent amendments can be viewed online at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/.</E> You may also contact the Rules and Regulations Group, Office of Policy, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeffrey Claypool, Federal Aviation Administration, Operations Support Group, Central Service Center, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76177; telephone (817) 222-5711. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules regarding aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code. Subtitle I, Section 106 describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. This rulemaking is promulgated under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart I, Section 40103. Under that section, the FAA is charged with prescribing regulations to assign the use of airspace necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficient use of airspace. This regulation is within the scope of that authority as it amends the Class E airspace at the affected airport to support IFR operations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">History</HD> The FAA published an NPRM for Docket No. FAA-2025-5106 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 52580; November 21, 2025) proposing to amend the Class E airspace at Beeville, TX. Interested parties were invited to participate in this rulemaking effort by submitting written comments on the proposal to the FAA. One comment was received from the Citizens Rulemaking Alliance. Overall, the comment and accompanying petition are not applicable to the proposed airspace action; however, the following explanations are provided. The comment and accompanying petition requested that the final rule be withdrawn, an NPRM or direct final rule be issued, and the effective date delayed for an applicable comment period. The comment was written as if the FAA had already issued a final rule without any opportunity for comment, but in fact, the FAA had only issued an NPRM. The FAA provided a 45-day comment period for the NPRM, during which the commenter submitted its comment and petition. The commenter's request had already been satisfied at the time it submitted its comment and petition. The comment, therefore, appears to be unrelated and inapplicable to the instant action. The petition also seems to allege that, because the FAA employs standardized language in its routine airspace action rulemakings, it has not performed the requisite analyses, specifically with respect to the Regulatory Flexibility Act and Executive Order (E.O.) 12866. Indeed, the FAA has developed standardized language for use in these routine actions to ensure consistency and streamline drafting of rulemaking documents in one of its most prolific regulatory portfolios. However, each action is individually assessed and tailored as appropriate in compliance with applicable law and agency guidance, including the Administrative Procedures Act; the Regulatory Flexibility Act; E.O. 12866; FAA Order JO 7400.2R, <E T="03">Procedures for Handling Airspace Matters;</E> and FAA Order 1050.1G, <E T="03">FAA National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures.</E> Ironically, the commenter appears to utilize boilerplate language in its comment and petition that is not relevant to the instant action. Substantively, the petition also makes an assumption that the expansion of the Class E airspace extending upward from 700 ft. above the surface at Beeville, TX, “can foreclose or constrain marginal VFR operations,” which is unsubstantiated. This Class E airspace is established as transitional airspace to/from terminal or enroute environments around airports with instrument procedures as required by FAA Order JO 7400.2R. No air traffic control services are provided, and there are no communications requirements, so there is little to no impact on VFR traffic. In fact, this Class E airspace advises the VFR pilots that there are instrument procedures and potential IFR traffic in the area which increases the pilot's situational awareness. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class E airspace designations are published in paragraph 6005 of FAA Order JO 7400.11, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, which is incorporated by reference in 14 CFR 71.1 on an annual basis. This document amends the current version of that order, FAA Order JO 7400.11K, dated August 4, 2025, and effective September 15, 2025. These amendments will be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. FAA Order JO 7400.11K, which lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points, is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Rule</HD> This action amends 14 CFR part 71 by modifying the Class E airspace extending upward from 700 ft. above the surface at Beeville, Texas, due to an airspace review conducted as part of the decommissioning of the Three Rivers VOR as part of the VOR MON Program. For the Beeville Municipal Airport, Beeville, TX, Class E airspace extending upward from 700 ft. above the surface, this action: (1) increases the radius from 6.6 miles to 7.1 miles from the airport; (2) removes the Beeville NDB and associated extension as they are no longer required; and (3) updates the geographic coordinates of the airport to coincide with the FAA's aeronautical database. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Notices and Analyses</HD> The FAA has determined that this regulation only involves an established body of technical regulations for which frequent and routine amendments are necessary to keep them operationally current. It, therefore: (1) is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866; (2) is not a “significant rule” under DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures (44 FR 11034; February 26, 1979); and (3) does not warrant preparation of a regulatory evaluation as the anticipated impact is so minimal. Since this is a routine matter that only affects air traffic procedures and air navigation, it is certified that this rule, when promulgated, does not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Environmental Review</HD> The FAA has determined that this action qualifies for categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act in accordance with FAA Order 1050.1G, “FAA National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures,” Paragraph B-2.5(a). This airspace action is not expected to cause any potentially significant environmental impacts, and no extraordinary circumstances exist that warrant preparation of an environmental assessment. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">Lists of Subjects in 14 CFR 71</HD> Airspace, Incorporation by reference, Navigation (air). </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Amendment</HD> In consideration of the foregoing, the Federal Aviation Administration amends 14 CFR part 71 as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 71—DESIGNATION OF CLASS A, B, C, D, AND E AIRSPACE AREAS; AIR TRAFFIC SERVICE ROUTES; AND REPORTING POINTS</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="71"> 1. The authority citation for 14 CFR part 71 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 49 U.S.C. 106(f), 106(g), 40103, 40113, 40120; E.O. 10854, 24 FR 9565, 3 CFR, 1959-1963 Comp., p. 389. </REGTEXT> <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 71.1</SECTNO> <SUBJECT>[Amended]</SUBJECT> </SECTION> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="71"> 2. The incorporation by reference in 14 CFR 71.1 of FAA Order JO 7400.11K, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, dated August 4, 2025, and effective September 15, 2025, is amended as follows: <EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Paragraph 6005 Class E Airspace Areas Extending Upward From 700 Feet or More Above the Surface of the Earth.</HD> <STARS/> <HD SOURCE="HD1">ASW TX E5 Beeville, TX [Amended]</HD> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">Beeville Muni ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 11k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━