D R A F T

Re:Evaluation of Existing Coast Guard Regulations, Guidance Documents, Interpretative Documents, and Collections of Information (USCG-2017-0480)

The Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA) is pleased to provide the following general and specific comments to assist the United States Coast Guard’s (USCG)efforts in identifying regulations, policy or guidance that should be repealed, replaced, or modified because they eliminate jobs, inhibit job creation, are outdated, unnecessary, ineffective, or impose costs that exceed benefits.

GENERAL COMMENTS.

Extension of Time to Comment:

Wethank the USCG for the extendedtime for comments. As you are aware, the USCG oversees a wide regulatory field and many implement or are aligned with international treaties or agreements. Considering this volume, importance, technical nature, and complexity our industry requiredsignificant time to develop comprehensive solutions that lack unintended consequences.

Consider Only USCG Promulgated Regulations:

We would also urge the USCG to only accept comments pertaining to USCG published and enforced regulations. Any regulations the USCG enforces for another agency should not be accepted or considered within this docket.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS.

1. Ballast Water:

We recommend 33 C.F.R. 151.2060(e) be repealed as this regulation is unnecessary, ineffective, and imposes costs that exceed benefits on vessels “operating on voyages exclusively between ports or places within a single COTP Zone”. Additionally, we recommend that vessels that use only water from a U.S. Public Water System (PWS)as ballast in compliance with 33 C.F.R. 151.2025(a)(2) be exempted from the reporting requirements in 33 C.F.R. 151.2060 for the same reasons.

Formerly, under the 33 C.F.R. 151.1504 the definition of ballast water excluded commercial or municipal fresh water sources as being considered ballast water and no reporting was required. The restructured 33 C.F.R. 151.2025 revised the definition of ballast water to include commercial or municipal fresh water as (PWS). Under 33 C.F.R. 151.2025(a)(2), vessels that use ballast water sourced from U.S.PWS do not need to install or operate ballast water management systems. However, these vessels do need to comply with the reporting requirements under the 33 C.F.R. 151.2060.

Vessels “operating on voyages exclusively between ports or places within a single COTP Zone” or using only water from a U.S. PWS,pose zero risk oftransferring non-indigenous species from their ballast water into the environment making the reporting requirements of 33 C.F.R. 151.2060 a high administrative burden and cost, with no corresponding value. 33 C.F.R. 151.2015 (Exemptions) should be revised to remain consistent with these recommendations.

2. Salvage and Marine Firefighting (SMFF) core Geographic Specific Appendices (GSAs):

We recommend 33 C.F.R. 155.1065 and 155.1070 (tank vessels) and 33 C.F.R. 155.5065 and 155.5070 (non-tank vessels) be amended to change the procedure by which vessels revise their Vessel Response Plan (VRP). Specifically, to alleviate much of the administrative revision process to the VRP, we propose the plan holder may incorporate by reference the current SMFF core GSA information maintained at

Under [insert references], a vessel operator is responsible for determining the adequacy of the resource providers included in their VRP, and must certify in their VRP that the identified SMFF provider meets regulatory criteria. The USCG is responsible for review of the VRPs and notifies the vessel operator of VRP approval, or that the VRP does not meet all the requirements. The applicable regulations for plan approval, review, amendment, and appeal are found in 33 C.F.R. 155.1065 and 155.1070 (tank vessels) and 33 C.F.R. 155.5065 and 155.5070 (non-tank vessels).

Upon each change of the GSA date, the plan holder is currently required to submit a Job Aid form to revise the VRP reflecting the current date and revision number of the contracted SMFF resource providers core GSA. We do not believe this was the original intent, nor do we believe this adds any value to the program.

We propose a making the above-described change to the regulation would greatly reduce the number of revisions to the VRP to cover only those essential updates required by the USCG while still providing validation of the core GSA date/revision number. The current process requiring action at each change to the GSA is excessive and creates unnecessary Job Aid submissions resulting in unnecessary effort and expense for both the plan holder and the USCG, resulting in high administrative burden and cost, with low or no corresponding value.

3. Reduction of PREP Guideline Drill/Exercise Frequency:

We recommend reducing the PreparednessforResponse Exercise Program (PREP)Quarterly Qualified Individual (QI) Exercise and the Remote Assessment and Consultation exercise frequency. This change will reduce low value and high cost activities while not impacting vessel casualty response capability.

The Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90), and its implementing regulations (33 C.F.R. 154, Subpart F and 33 C.F.R. 155, Subpart D, I, and J) create a complex and comprehensive set of legal requirements for facility and vessel response plans, drills, and exercises, and a host of other critical factors that must be addressed in the preparation and exercise of response plans, all to ensure a timely response to prevent or mitigate a spill. OMSA fully supports the need for such a system and reasonable exercising of response plans.

The2016 PREPGuidelinessignificantly expanded the scope and frequency of exercises/drills beyond that required by regulation. Although these guideline state “Using the PREP Guidelines is voluntary; they are not regulations,”in actuality following the PREP guidelines is the onlyconcretemethod to prove compliance with the 33 C.F.R. 155.5060 requirement to “conduct exercises as necessary to ensure that the VRP will function in an emergency.” The PREP requirements are overly prescriptive and some requirements have high costs and no added value. Two examples are the Quarterly Qualified Individual (QI) exercise and the remote assessment and consultation requirements for manned vessels.

The PREP was developed to establish a workable exercise program that meets the intent of section 4202(a) of OPA 90 andwas designed to provide a mechanism for compliance with the exercise requirements, while being economically feasible for the Government and the oil industry to adopt and sustain. While the 2002 PREP Guidelines met this objective, the significant modifications included in the 2016 NPREP represent an unreasonable change to the prior workable program. Therevised PREP guidelines have increased drill/exercise frequency and reporting requirements for nontank vessels.

At present each OMSA vessel is required to conduct the QI exercise quarterly, which for a fleet of 900OSV’s, represents 3,600 QI exercises annually, or 10 each day. This does not take into account the Remote Assessment and Consultation exercise which cannot be conducted in conjunction with the QI notification exercise; which is an additional 900 exercises (for a total of 4,500 annual drill/exercises just for the OMSA OSV fleet). By implementing our recommendation and rescinding the NPREP, the industry could save XXX number of exercises. The following changes would reduce the amount of exercises while still accomplishing the intent of the NPREP:

a)Reduce the frequency of the QI quarterly notification exercise to a semi-annual exercise.
b)Modify the Remote Assessment and Consultation exercise to permit credit during the QI Notification Exercise.

4. SEMS Proposed Rule:

We recommend the USCG cease work on and remove from the regulatory agenda the “Safety and Environmental Management System” (SEMS) rule proposed in 2013 under Docket No. USCG–2012–0779. The proposed SEMS rule isunnecessary, ineffective, duplicative, and imposes costs that exceed benefitsand squarely fits the purpose of this rulemaking. All vessels working for an OCS leaseholder on the waters above the U.S. OCS are currently required by the leaseholder to; 1) have a written Safety Management System (SMS), and 2) be consistent with (typically via a bridging document) the BSEE required SEMS of the leaseholder.

Since all vessels proposed for coverage by the SEMS regulation are already using an SMS, requiring additional expenses to create and perhaps audit a new and redundant SEMS for every OCS vessel is a perfect candidate for removal from the USCG regulatory agenda.

5. Certificate of Documentation Renewal Period:

We recommend revising46 C.F.R. 67.163 to make avessel Certificate of Documentation (COD) renewal period five years instead of annually to reduce costs to the public and USCG. This change would relieve the vessel operators and the USCG staff ofdoing a very low value task every year and would match the renewal schedule of the other certificates (SOLAS, MARPOL, etc.) carried on commercial vessels. We recommend the current renewal user fee remain unchanged.

The name, owner,length, and tonnage of a vessel, whether commercial or recreational, rarely changes. As such, an annual update or renewal of the COD is outdated, unnecessary, ineffective, and imposes costs that greatly exceed the minimal benefits.

6. STCW 2010 Amendments Rule:

We recommend multiple changes to 46 C.F.R. Subchapter B to correct text that will seriously inhibit job creation and advancement, is unnecessary, ineffective, incorrect, and imposes costs that exceed any minimal benefits gained . To implement the 2010 changes to the IMO’s STCW Code, the USCG published a comprehensive change to the mariner credential rules under Docket No. USCG–2004–17914 to update 46 C.F.R. Subchapter B (parts 10 through 16). Due to the size of the document, neither the drafter(s)nor the regulated industry found all of the inconsistent or unclear portions until after the rulemaking review and comment process. Here are some portions of that rule that are redundant and ripe for repeal, that inhibit job creation, are unnecessary, or impose costs that exceed benefits.

The revised Subpart K, specifically 46 C.F.R. 15.1103(a) through (e)correctly restate the STCW requirements as USCG requirements for vessel personnel. Then46 C.F.R. 15.403 (c) through (e) again restatesthe regulatory text from46 C.F.R. 15.1103, as such 46. C.F.R. 15.403 (c) through (e) should be repealed and reserved.

Similarly, the revised 46 C.F.R.15.404 (a) through (c) text again duplicates the existing requirements in 46 C.F.R. Subpart K. Unfortunately,the last sentence in 46 C.F.R. 15.404 (b) misstates the STCW Able Seafarer-Deck (AS-D) requirement by requiringholding the STCWAS-D endorsement by personnel serving as a nationally endorsed Able Seaman on a vessel between 100 and 499 GRT. This was clearly an inadvertent expansion of the STCWrequirement since a crew member on a vessel of between 100 to 499 GRT is not required by Subpart B or by STCW to hold the Rating Forming Part of a Navigation Watch (RFPNW) endorsement which must be earned and served on for 18 months to earn the AS-D endorsement.

This drafting error effectively makes the national endorsements specifically created formariners serving on small vessels—i.e. Able Seaman–Offshore Supply Vessel, Able Seaman–Special, and Able Seaman–Limited—effectively useless. Earning the STCW AS-D requires a minimum of 24 months of sea service which exceeds the service required for earningany of these three national Able Seaman endorsements. This isalso despite46 C.F.R. 15.11.0(a)(2) granting an STCW exemption to small vessels(generally under 200 GRT) operating on U.S. waters. As such, we strongly recommend the text in 46 C.F.R. 15.404 (a) through (c) be repealed and reserved as this drafting error will seriously inhibit job creation and advancement,is unnecessary, ineffective, incorrect, and imposes costs that exceed any minimal benefitsgained.

7. USCG Vessel Layup Policy:

We strongly recommend the USCG revise and limit application of vessel layup policies as grossly excessive, too expensive, too high an administrative burden, and failing to improve the health or safety of mariners or the public as applied to small vessel such as OSVs.In the USCG Marine Safety Manual (MSM), volume VI, COMDTINST M16000.11, on pages 1-28 and 1-29 the USCG published guidance to their field personnel on information considered relevant to evaluating the long-term anchorage (layup) requests by idle tank ships. This document was published in 1986 and was last updated in 1996.

While it could be argued that anchoring a 250,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) chemical tank ship in offshore waters for months or years is a risky operation that requires significant data submission to the USCG to allow an accurate and comprehensive decision process, the opposite is true for layup of a 600 to 6,000 DWT OSV or a crewboat at an inland shipyard dock. Yet local OCMI’s have asked vessel owners to provide the excessive, expansive, and expensive data from the MSM as part of the recent layup of OSVs.

Owners of OSVs would risk loss of valuable assets, cancellation of insurance coverage, and inability to earn revenue if layup of their vessels wasn’t done safely. The current economic downturn in the energy sector is at least the third downturn in the last four decades that forced vessel owners to layup vessels. The USCG has no evidence that any of the previous layup efforts were unsafe or damaged the marine environment. There has never been any need for any USCG guidance or review of these layup efforts for OSVs and crewboats.

We know the MSM data submission guidance for idle vessels is grossly excessive, too expensive, too much of an administrative burden, and does not improve the health or safety of mariners or the public for vessels moored in inland waters. We therefor recommend that the USCG advise their field personnel that:

  • the MSM layup process is NOT appropriate for OSVs and crewboats when not anchored in exposed waters;
  • that a vessel moored in a location designed for mooring vessels such as a shipyard, dock, or berth must be considered safe;
  • that a vessel with a surrendered Certificate of Inspection (COI) or in layup status is not subject to any security measure obligation under the 33 C.F.R. Subpart H or Subpart K;
  • that classification society rules for vessel layup or other maritime organization dynamic positioning vessel layup guidance is not appropriate for mandatory application useby USCG personnel when evaluating layup proposals;
  • that the MSM referenced text and section title be modified to indicate it is only for use by anchored tank ships, and
  • that local USCG units shall not establish any vessel layup requirements for a vessel that has temporarily surrendered their COI due to the downturn of the energy industry or that has a valid COI and remains in active status but may not be actively working.

Place holders for proposed or work in progress comments:

Revertthe Nontank Vessel Response Plan application to 400 GRT vice 400 ITC

Match US marine engine emission rules to IMO MARPOL (goes to EPA)

Remove celestial navigation requirement from licensing for Ocean Masters and Mates.

Make radar observer license one-time training vice renewed every five years.

Allow all vessels to use two-watch system (law change).

Allow all U.S. vessels operating from a foreign port use foreign crewmembers, not just OSVs.

Make 46 CFR more like SOLAS, divide everything into general categories, Cargo, Passenger, Other. (We, the industry, likely asked for the current system to avoid one size fits all rules)