The Coast Guard can now enforce temporary safety zones even if it misses the filing deadline

The Coast Guard has changed its rules for publishing temporary safety and security zones. It can now enforce these zones even if it fails to publish them in the Federal Register before they expire. This means the public will not always know about these restrictions in advance.

For years, the public could assume that if a temporary Coast Guard restriction wasn't published, it wasn't enforceable. This change removes that assumption. It means the Coast Guard can retroactively enforce rules that were never publicly announced in time. This shifts the burden of knowing about temporary restrictions onto the public, even when the agency fails its own publication duties.