With this final rule, NOAA re-establishes the process by which communities may submit applications to have NOAA consider nominations of areas of the marine and Great Lakes environments as national marine sanctuaries. Communities, in this context, are defined as a collection of interested individuals or groups (e.g., a friends of group, a chamber of commerce); local, tribal, state, or national agencies; elected officials; or topic-based stakeholder groups, at the local, regional or national level (e.g., a local chapter of an environmental organization, a regionally-based fishing group, a national-level recreation or tourism organization, academia or science-based group, or an industry association). Through this nomination process, NOAA is seeking to give communities an opportunity to identify special marine and Great Lakes areas they believe would benefit from designation as a national marine sanctuary. There is no requirement for who may nominate an area for consideration; however, nominations should demonstrate broad support from a variety of stakeholders and interested parties. This rule contains the criteria and considerations NOAA will use to evaluate national marine sanctuary nominations, describes the process for submitting national marine sanctuary nominations, and promulgates the regulations necessary to implement this action. If NOAA determines a nomination adequately meets the final criteria and considerations, it may place that nomination into an inventory of areas for the NOAA Administrator, as delegated from the Secretary of Commerce, to consider for designation as a national marine sanctuary. As such, NOAA is not designating any new national marine sanctuaries with this action. In issuing this rule, NOAA replaces the currently inactive Site Evaluation List with a new process for communities and other interested parties to work collaboratively and innovatively in their submission of national marine sanctuary nominations. The re-opening of the sanctuary