Coast Guard May 27, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Coast Guard has issued a temporary deviation from the operating schedule that governs the James River Draw Bridge across the James River, mile 5.0, between Isle of Wight and Newport News, VA. This deviation is necessary to facilitate electrical repairs to the south tower of the bridge. This deviation allows the bridge to remain in the closed-to-navigation position.

The Coast Guard is reopening the public comment period for the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) entitled ``Seafarers' Access to Maritime Facilities,'' which published in the Federal Register on December 29, 2014. The NPRM proposed to require each owner or operator of a facility regulated by the Coast Guard to implement a system that provides seafarers and other individuals with access between vessels moored at the facility and the facility gate, in a timely manner and at no cost to the seafarer or other individual. As originally published, the comment period for the NPRM closed on February 27, 2015. Several members of the public have requested additional time to comment on the NPRM, citing various timing constraints. In order to provide interested members of the public an additional opportunity to submit comments on the NPRM, the Coast Guard is reopening the public comment period for 60 days. We are particularly interested in comments on our estimate that there is a 10.3 percent non-compliance rate of facilities with respect to providing seafarers' access. In addition to comments on this topic, we will consider all public comments on the NPRM received during the reopened comment period. We request that you not re-submit comments already in the docket.