SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Coast Guard District Commanders and Captains of the Port (COTP) must be immediately responsive to the safety and security needs within their jurisdiction; therefore, District Commanders and COTPs have been delegated the authority to issue certain local regulations. Safety zones may be established for safety or environmental purposes. A safety zone may be stationary and described by fixed limits or it may be described as a zone around a vessel in motion. Security zones limit access to prevent injury or damage to vessels, ports, or waterfront facilities. Special local regulations are issued to enhance the safety of participants and spectators at regattas and other marine events.

Timely publication of these rules in the Federal Register may be precluded when a rule responds to an emergency, or when an event occurs without sufficient advance notice. The affected public is, however, often informed of these rules through Broadcast Notice to Mariners, Local Notices to Mariners, press releases, and other means. Moreover, actual notification is often provided by Coast Guard patrol vessels enforcing the restrictions imposed by the rule. Timely publication of notifications of enforcement of reoccurring regulations may be precluded when the event occurs with short notice or other agency procedural restraints.

Because Federal Register publication was not possible before the end of the effective period, mariners would have been notified of the contents of these safety zones, security zones, special local regulations, regulated navigation areas, or drawbridge operation regulations by Coast Guard officials prior to any enforcement action. However, the Coast Guard, by law, must publish in the Federal Register notice of substantive rules adopted. To meet this obligation without imposing undue expense on the public, the Coast Guard periodically publishes a list of these temporary safety zones, security zones, special local regulations, regulated navigation areas and drawbridge operation regulations. Permanent rules are not included in this list because they are published in their entirety in the Federal Register . Temporary rules are also published in their entirety if sufficient time is available to do so before they are placed in effect or terminated. In some of our reoccurring regulations, we say we will publish a notice of enforcement as one of the means of notifying the public. We use this notification to announce those notifications of enforcement that we issued and will post them to their dockets.

The following unpublished rules were placed in effect temporarily during the period between January 2024 and March 2024. To view copies of these rules, visit www.regulations.gov and search by the docket number indicated in the following table.

91 FR 452