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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 167 / Wednesday, September 1, 2021 / Proposed Rules
firefighting course.16 Prior to the 2013
final rule, only masters and mates pilots of towing vessels serving on an ocean route were required to complete firefighting training.
The 2013 final rule established grandfathering provisions for which the Coast Guard provided guidance in Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular NVIC 0316, titled Guidelines for Credentialing Officers of Towing Vessels. 17 As described in Enclosure 10 of NVIC 0316, the Coast Guard grandfathered in mariners applying for an original MMC endorsed as master or mate pilot of towing vessels on non-oceans routes who began sea service prior to March 24, 2014 and submitted an application prior to March 24, 2019. The grandfathering provisions established that applicants for original master or mate pilot endorsements on non-oceans routes prior to March 24, 2019 were not required to take a firefighting course.18
Mariners raising the grade of their MMC endorsement from mate pilot to master of towing vessels were also grandfathered in under NVIC 0316, and were not required to take a firefighting course. As a result of the grandfathering provisions, this proposal would be applicable to new applicants for master of towing vessels limited or mate pilot of towing vessels endorsements who choose to take a modified basic firefighting course.
In order to qualify for an MMC
endorsement as master of towing vessels, other than master of towing vessels limited, an applicant must have prior sea service experience as either a mate pilot of towing vessels or a master of vessels greater than 200
gross register tons GRT. In order to hold the endorsement authorizing service in either of these capacities would have required the applicant to either take a firefighting course or be grandfathered in under NVIC 0316. As a result, this proposed rule does not impact applicants for an endorsement as master of towing vessels other than master of towing vessels limited.
Masters of towing vessels limited do not require prior sea service as a master 16 See
78 FR 77796.
Coast Guard NVICs can be found at:
https www.dco.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/NVIC/
Year/2010/. The NVIC was updated in September 2020 and the discussion about grandfathering was removed because the grandfathering period has expired. The original NVIC was published June 23, 2016 and can be found here: https
beta.regulations.gov/document/USCG-2016-06110001.
18 Coast Guard SMEs estimate that nearly all master or mate pilot applicants would have begun sea service prior to March 24, 2014.

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or mate of vessels greater than 200 GRT.
Therefore, this proposed rule would affect applicants for endorsements of inland master of towing vessels limited if they do not have a prior endorsement as a mate pilot that required a firefighting course. Two towing vessel endorsement applicant groups are thus affected by this rule: 1
Mate pilot of towing vessels, and 2
master of towing vessels limited with no prior endorsement as a mate pilot.
The Coast Guards National Maritime Center NMC issues MMCs to applicants who meet the regulatory requirements for endorsements described in 46 CFR parts 11, 12, and 13. Applicants for endorsements as master and mate pilot of towing vessels may be endorsed to operate on oceans, near coastal, Great Lakes and inland waters, or Western Rivers routes.
The Merchant Mariner Licensing and Documentation MMLD database is used by the NMC to issue MMCs and maintain records of U.S. merchant mariners. Data was obtained from the MMLD, for the period between 2015
2019, on each issuance of an original master or mate pilot of towing vessel endorsement, including when the endorsement was issued, and the authorized routes of operation.
We excluded applicants for Great Lakes, near-coastal, or oceans routes, because applicants for those endorsements on those routes are required to complete basic firefighting and would not be affected by the rule.
Currently, Great Lakes and inland waters are issued as one route for towing vessel endorsements. With this proposed rule, language would be added to allow the separation of these two routes so that a mariner who completes the modified basic firefighting course could be issued an endorsement valid for inland waters or Western Rivers.
Because towing vessel endorsements are currently issued for Great Lakes and inland routes, the Coast Guard cannot directly estimate from the MMLD data the number of masters and mate pilots of towing vessels operating exclusively on the inland waters. However, we can estimate the number of towing vessels that operate on these waters based on data from towing vessel inspection records.
As of October 2019, 1,265 towing vessels have been inspected, out of an estimated 5,770 46 CFR subchapter M
vessels.19 When vessels are inspected, 19 Data from the Coast Guards Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement database from October, 2019. 46 CFR subchapter M
requires all towing vessels greater than 26 feet and those that transport hazardous materials to be
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they must declare their operating route, which may include the Great Lakes, inland waters and Western Rivers.
In order to isolate the vessels operating on the Great Lakes, we first reviewed the number of vessels that operate on the Great Lakes, inland waters or Western Rivers, and then examined the number of vessels that list the Great Lakes as at least one of their routes. Specifically, out of the 1,265
total towing vessels inspected under 46
CFR subchapter M, 900 are recorded as one or more of the following routes:
Great Lakes, inland waters, or Western Rivers. Five percent, or 45 of the 900
vessels, include the Great Lakes as one of their listed routes and, therefore, would require basic firefighting training, since they may operate on the Great Lakes. The remaining 95 percent, or 855
vessels, do not include the Great Lakes as one of their listed routes and, therefore, we assume mariners serving on these vessels are eligible to take the modified basic firefighting course.20
Table 3 shows the number of endorsements issued from 20162020
for master of towing vessels limited and mate pilot of towing vessels, respectively, endorsed to operate on the Great Lakes, inland waters, or Western Rivers routes. While we report the number of endorsements issued in 2020
in the table below, we intentionally exclude 2020 when calculating the average number of master limited and mate pilot towing vessel endorsements each year because of the exceptional impact the COVID19 pandemic on all facets of the U.S. economy. We therefore do not believe the number of endorsements issued in 2020 represents a typical year, and that many individuals that might ordinarily have pursued an endorsement did not because of the general slowdown in business associated with the pandemic.
On average between 2016 and 2019, the Coast Guard has issued 13 master of towing vessels limited and 450 mate pilot of towing vessels endorsements per year, for a total of 463 new endorsements per year on Great Lakes, inland waters, and/or Western Rivers routes.
inspected. The Coast Guard has not fully implemented the 46 CFR subchapter M
requirements, which is why not all affected towing vessels have been inspected.
20 45 divided by 900 equals .05 or 5 percent of inspected towing vessels listing an inland waters, Western Rivers, or Great Lakes route operate on the Great Lakes.

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