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The Coast Guard announced in the Federal Register that, in accordance with the Great Lakes Pilotage Act of 1960, it is establishing new base pilotage rates and surcharges for the 2020 shipping season. Changes include an increase in rates for five areas and a decrease in the rate for the one remaining area.

In this final rule, as part of our annual review, the Coast Guard is establishing new pilotage rates for 2020 based on the existing ratemaking methodology. The result is an increase in rates for five areas and a decrease in the rate for the one remaining area. These changes are due to a combination of four factors: (1) An increase in total operating expenses for the associations compared to the previous year, (2) an increase in the amount of money needed for the working capital fund, (3) inflation of pilot compensation by 2 percent, and (4) the net addition of one working pilot at the beginning of the 2020 shipping season in District Two. In addition, in this final rule, the Coast Guard made two adjustments to the operating expenses based on public comment, which increased the final rates from those published in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). In the final rule we adjusted the operating expenses to include the 3 percent shared council fee which we incorrectly deducted in the NPRM; and added a surcharge adjustment for District 2 and District 3 to account for the differences between their accrued training expenses and the amount of money they collected via the surcharge in 2017.

Based on the ratemaking model discussed in this final rule, the finalized rates are shown in table 1.

For information, view the Final Rule or contact Mr. Brian Rogers, Commandant (CG-WWM-2), Coast Guard; telephone 202-372-1535, email Brian.Rogers@uscg.mil, or fax 202-372-1914.

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