Notice2021-14575
Request for Information on Coast Guard Programs, Regulations, and Policies for Addressing Climate Change
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
July 8, 2021
Issuing agencies
Homeland Security DepartmentCoast Guard
Abstract
The U.S. Coast Guard seeks input from the public on specific Coast Guard programs, regulations, policies, and procedures that the Coast Guard should consider changing to combat and respond to climate change. This information will help the Coast Guard effectively achieve its missions in a manner that advances the Administration's urgent priorities of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. We further seek this input to ensure that we are implementing programs, policies, and activities that address (1) the cumulative effects of environmental damage, above all from climate change and (2) the disproportionately high, adverse climate-related impacts on disadvantaged communities, while also promoting a safe, secure, and resilient marine transportation system that facilitates commerce and secures national security interests.
Full Text
<html>
<head>
<title>Federal Register, Volume 86 Issue 128 (Thursday, July 8, 2021)</title>
</head>
<body><pre>
[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 128 (Thursday, July 8, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 36145-36147]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2021-14575]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Coast Guard
[Docket No. USCG-2021-0233]
Request for Information on Coast Guard Programs, Regulations, and
Policies for Addressing Climate Change
AGENCY: Coast Guard, DHS.
ACTION: Request for information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The U.S. Coast Guard seeks input from the public on specific
Coast Guard programs, regulations, policies, and procedures that the
Coast Guard should consider changing to combat and respond to climate
change. This information will help the Coast Guard effectively achieve
its missions in a manner that advances the Administration's urgent
priorities of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. We
further seek this input to ensure that we are implementing programs,
policies, and activities that address (1) the cumulative effects of
environmental damage, above all from climate change and (2) the
disproportionately high, adverse climate-related impacts on
disadvantaged communities, while also promoting a safe, secure, and
resilient marine transportation system that facilitates commerce and
secures national security interests.
DATES: Comments must be submitted to the online docket via <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a> on or before October 6, 2021.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-
2021-0233 using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>. See the ``Public Participation and Request for
Comments'' portion of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for further
instructions on submitting comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about this document
call or email Mr. Tim Brown, Coast Guard; telephone 202-372-2358, email
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a3f7caceccd7cbda8dee8de1d1ccd4cde3d6d0c0c48dcecacf"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="4d192420223925346300630f3f223a230d383e2e2a63202421">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Public Participation and Comments
We encourage you to submit comments (or related material)
responding to this request for information. We will consider all
submissions and may adjust agency policy based on your input. If you
submit a comment, please include the docket number for this notice,
indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment
applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation.
Methods for submitting comments. We encourage you to submit
comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>. To do so, go to <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, type
USCG-2021-0233 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 your material cannot be submitted using
<a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, contact the person in the FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate
instructions. Public comments will be in our online docket at <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a> and can be viewed by following that website's
instructions provided on its Frequently Asked Questions page. We review
all material received, but we may choose not to post off-topic,
inappropriate, or duplicate comments that we receive.
Personal information. We accept anonymous submissions. Comments we
post to <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a> will include any personal
information you have provided. For more about privacy and submissions
in response to this document, see DHS's eRulemaking System of Records
notice (85 FR 14226, March 11, 2020).
II. Background
The Coast Guard is issuing this request for information in response
to Executive Orders 13990 and 14008, which have established the
protection of public health and the environment, the mitigation of
climate change, and the advancement of environmental justice as policy
priorities for this Administration. Executive Order 13990, Protecting
Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the
Climate Crisis,\1\ states that the Administration's policy is to listen
to science; to ensure access to clean air and water; to limit exposure
to dangerous chemicals and pesticides; to hold polluters accountable,
including those that disproportionately harm communities of color and
low-income communities; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to bolster
resilience to the impacts of climate change; to restore and expand our
national treasures and monuments; and to prioritize both environmental
justice and the creation of the well-paying union jobs necessary to
deliver on these goals. The Order directs agencies to seek input from
the public and stakeholders, including State, local, Tribal, and
territorial officials, scientists, labor unions, environmental
advocates, and environmental justice organizations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 86 FR 7037 (published Jan. 25, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Order directs agencies immediately to review all regulations,
orders, guidance documents, policies, or any other similar agency
actions undertaken between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021, that
are inconsistent with the listed policy priorities. In addition,
agencies are directed to contemplate and consider whether to take any
additional agency actions, within their authority, to fully enforce the
listed policy priorities.
Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and
Abroad,<SUP>2</SUP> further places the climate crisis at the center of
U.S. foreign policy and national security by deploying the full
capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis, by implementing
a Government-wide approach that reduces climate pollution in every
sector of the economy; by increasing resilience to the impacts of
climate change; by protecting public health; by conserving our lands,
waters, and biodiversity; by delivering environmental justice; and by
spurring
[[Page 36146]]
well-paying jobs and economic growth, especially through innovation,
commercialization, and deployment of clean energy technologies and
infrastructure. The Order states that successfully meeting these
challenges will require the Federal Government to pursue a coordinated
approach from planning to implementation, coupled with substantive
engagement by stakeholders, including State, local, and Tribal
governments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ 86 FR 7619 (published Feb. 1, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This request for information is also consistent with Executive
Order 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,\3\ which calls
for a regulatory system that is based on the best available science and
protects public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while
promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job
creation. The Executive Order directs agencies to consider how best to
promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded,
ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify,
streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been
learned. Executive Order 13563 is affirmed in the President's
Memorandum of January 20, 2021, Modernizing Regulatory Review. The
Coast Guard seeks this input recognizing the importance of reevaluating
programs to reduce unnecessary barriers to effectiveness, adapt to new
technologies, and ensure mission resiliency when combating and
responding to climate change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ 76 FR 3821 (published Jan. 21, 2011).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Coast Guard Missions and Authorities
The Coast Guard seeks input on how best to use the Coast Guard's
statutory authorities to implement these orders and to reduce the risks
associated with climate change. Many of the Coast Guard's missions are
identified in brief at 6 U.S.C. 468. All of these missions contribute
to the facilitation of safe, secure, and environmentally responsible
commerce through our stewardship of the marine transportation system.
These missions include marine safety; search and rescue; aids to
navigation; living marine resources (fisheries law enforcement); marine
environmental protection; ice operations; ports, waterways and coastal
security; drug interdiction; migrant interdiction; defense readiness;
and other law enforcement.
These authorities are connected, of course, with the risks
associated with climate change. The Coast Guard also has important
responsibilities in acquiring scientific information, including
information involving the effects of climate change, and in issuing
regulations. While the Coast Guard holds a wide range of regulatory and
operational authorities to fulfill these missions, the Coast Guard
frequently shares responsibility for these missions with other
agencies.\4\ In some cases the Coast Guard has the authority to revise
regulations, guidelines, policies, or processes to address particular
problems in particular ways; in other cases the Coast Guard may be
unable to act without the assistance of another agency, or may be
unable to act at all. Commenters are therefore encouraged to focus
comments on matters within the Coast Guard's authorities, to the extent
known to the commenter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ A general list of Coast Guard authorities can be found
online at https://www.uscg.mil/readings/Article/1548177/authorities/
#:~:text=The%20Coast%20Guard%20may%20board,suppression%20of%20violati
ons%20of%20U.S.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Location of Coast Guard Regulations
Coast Guard regulations fall within three general categories in the
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)--navigation and navigable waters,
shipping, and transportation. Below are the three corresponding titles
in the CFR (and the parts in those titles) where you will find our
regulations:
<bullet> 33 CFR Chapter I (parts 1 through 199),
<bullet> 46 CFR Chapters I (parts 1 through 199) and III (parts 400
through 499), and
<bullet> 49 CFR Chapter IV (parts 400 through 499).
You can view these regulations on <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/">https://www.govinfo.gov/</a> or
<a href="https://www.ecfr.gov">https://www.ecfr.gov</a>.
In the CFR, you will find bracketed references to rules published
in the Federal Register (for example, xx FR xxxx, date). The Federal
Register publications differ from the CFR in that that, through the
preamble language, we fully explain our reasoning for establishing the
regulations in that CFR part or section and our estimates of the costs
and benefits of those regulations. Rules published since at least 1990
will be available in the Federal Register library on <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/">https://www.govinfo.gov/</a>.
Our rulemaking documents published in the Federal Register also
include a number that identifies our online docket. On <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, using that docket number, you should be able to
find supporting and related material we provided for that rule,
including a cost-benefit analysis. In our dockets, you will also find
notices of proposed rulemaking and submissions from interested persons
who commented on our initial proposal for the regulations that appear
in the final rule. The preamble of the final rule contains our
responses to those comments.
Location of Coast Guard Guidance Documents
You can find Coast Guard guidance documents online via <a href="https://www.uscg.mil/guidance">https://www.uscg.mil/guidance</a>. Guidance documents include Navigation and Vessel
Inspection Circulars (NVICs), policy letters, bulletins, handbooks, and
other items meant to inform the public. On this site, guidance
documents are categorized by the Coast Guard office that issued and
maintains the documents.
IV. Request for Information
The Coast Guard seeks public comments and suggestions on actions we
can take, within our statutory authority, to combat and respond to
climate change. As noted above, our mission areas encompass maritime
operations, safety, security, environmental stewardship, and
facilitation of the maritime commerce that contributes so crucially to
a vibrant U.S. economy.
The actions we might take could include revising current
regulations, guidelines, policies, or processes that unjustifiably
impede or fail to support the development and use of technologies and
best practices to combat or respond to climate change in the marine
transportation system. We might also orient our efforts to acquire and
disseminate information about the effects of climate change in
particular ways (for example, through use of <a href="http://data.gov">data.gov</a>).
When considering your comments and suggestions, we ask that you
keep in mind our missions to ensure a safe, secure, and resilient
marine transportation system that facilitates commerce and secures
national security interests. Commenters should consider the below
principles as they answer and respond to the questions in this notice.
<bullet> Commenters should identify, with specificity, the program,
regulation, or policy at issue, providing the Code of Federal
Regulation (CFR) citation where appropriate.
<bullet> Commentators should identify, with specificity, small or
large reforms that might be justified in light of the risks posed by
climate change, whether those reforms involve preparedness, mitigation,
adaptation, resilience, or other steps to reduce suffering.
<bullet> Commenters should provide, in as much detail as possible,
an explanation why a program, regulation, or policy should be modified,
streamlined, expanded, or repealed, as well as
[[Page 36147]]
specific suggestions of ways the agency can better achieve its
statutory and regulatory objectives in light of the executive orders
cited.
<bullet> Commenters should provide specific data that document the
costs, burdens, and benefits of existing requirements or programs or
proposed changes to them, to the extent they are available.
The following questions might help guide your comments and
suggestions. Given the Coast Guard's current missions and statutory
authority:
1. Do you have suggestions for changes to our current programs,
regulations, or policies that would combat climate change or bolster
resilience to the impacts of climate change or adapt to its impacts,
such as sea level rise?
2. What do you think the primary implications of climate change are
for our mission areas?
3. How will climate change affect Coast Guard programs, missions,
regulations, and policies in the future?
4. How might the Coast Guard orient or re-orient its efforts to
acquire information about the effects of climate change, and how might
it best disseminate that information?
5. How do you think the Coast Guard can advance the objectives of
environmental justice?
6. Are you aware of any new or emerging technologies appropriate
for use in maritime facilities or other industry assets that we should
consider when exploring alternatives to address climate change?
7. Which Coast Guard mission areas do you think are most likely to
be affected by climate change? How would they be affected?
8. What do you think are the most crucial challenges we will face
to address climate change in our programs, missions, regulations, and
policies?
9. Do our existing regulations unjustifiably impede or fail to
support the development and use of technologies or best practices that
would help us address climate change?
10. Are our regulations restrictive on the use of alternative fuels
that produce fewer harmful emissions? If so, how? What, specifically,
might we do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
11. Do our current polices, such as NVICs or other guidance
documents, impede or fail to support the development and use of
technologies or best practices to address climate change? If so, how?
12. Is the process of requesting a determination of equivalency to
use an alternative approach to regulatory requirements that might
address climate change burdensome?
13. What regulatory, policy, or other incentives could the Coast
Guard provide to encourage development and use of technologies or best
practices in the marine transportation system to combat and respond to
climate change?
14. Are there current Coast Guard regulations, guidance, policies,
or processes that contribute to climate change? If so, please explain
which ones and how.
15. What sources of existing data or studies can Coast Guard use to
evaluate the economic impact--positive or negative--from reducing the
environmental footprint of USCG programs, regulations, or policies with
regards to climate change?
16. What do you expect would be the positive or negative
environmental results of the Coast Guard addressing climate change in
the maritime domain, particularly in sensitive areas such as the Arctic
and U.S. coastal zones?
17. Are there Coast Guard programs, regulations, or policies that
do not bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change,
particularly for those disproportionately impacted by climate change,
and, if so, what are they? How can those programs, regulations, or
policies be modified, expanded, streamlined, or repealed to bolster
resilience to the impacts of climate change?
18. Do you have any suggestions for any changes to the Coast
Guard's Arctic strategy or any Coast Guard Arctic programs, such as ice
breaking, mapping, and charting missions that might bolster the Coast
Guard's ability to combat and respond to climate change?
In addition to these general questions, the Coast Guard seeks any
other input on the programs and missions described above that allows
the Coast Guard, within our statutory authorities, to combat or respond
to the climate crisis and adapt to its impacts on the maritime domain.
This request for information is used solely for information gathering
purposes and the responses to this RFI do not bind the Coast Guard to
any further actions related to the response.
Dated: June 25, 2021.
J.W. Mauger,
Rear Admiral, US Coast Guard, Assistant Commandant for Prevention
Policy.
[FR Doc. 2021-14575 Filed 7-7-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 9110-04-P
</pre><script data-cfasync="false" src="/cdn-cgi/scripts/5c5dd728/cloudflare-static/email-decode.min.js"></script></body>
</html>Indexed from Federal Register on July 8, 2021.
This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.