[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COAST GUARD MISSION BALANCE
=======================================================================
(113-2)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 26, 2013
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, Columbia
Vice Chair JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
GARY G. MILLER, California ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SAM GRAVES, Missouri RICK LARSEN, Washington
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
DUNCAN HUNTER, California MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
BOB GIBBS, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida JANICE HAHN, California
JEFF DENHAM, California RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DINA TITUS, Nevada
STEVE DAINES, Montana SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
TOM RICE, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
TREY RADEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
VACANCY
------ 7
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska JOHN GARAMENDI, California
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey CORRINE BROWN, Florida
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania RICK LARSEN, Washington
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida, TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
Vice Chair JANICE HAHN, California
TOM RICE, South Carolina LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
TREY RADEL, Florida NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
VACANCY (Ex Officio)
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Vice Admiral Peter V. Neffenger, Deputy Commandant for
Operations, U.S. Coast Guard................................... 3
PREPARED STATEMENTS AND ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED
BY WITNESSES
Vice Admiral Peter V. Neffenger:
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Answers to questions from the following Representatives:
Hon. John Garamendi, of California....................... 33
Hon. Rick Larsen, of Washington.......................... 43
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
U.S. Coast Guard's inserts for the record:
Student diversity at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy............ 19
Status of the U.S. Coast Guard's business case analysis of
the cost of reactivating the Polar Sea icebreaker.......... 20
U.S. Coast Guard's fiscal year 2013 Response Boat-Medium
acquisition plans.......................................... 21
U.S. Coast Guard's budgetary reductions under sequestration.. 24
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COAST GUARD MISSION BALANCE
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and
Maritime Transportation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room 2165, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Hunter. The subcommittee will come to order. The
subcommittee is meeting this morning to review how the Coast
Guard allocates its assets and personnel to carry out each of
its 11 statutory missions, as well as the challenges the
Service faces in performing its missions and measuring its
performance.
This is my first hearing as chairman of the subcommittee,
and Congressman Garamendi's first hearing as the subcommittee's
ranking member. And I look forward to working with him and with
the Coast Guard and the 113th Congress. Very honored to have
this subcommittee, worked really hard to get it. I would like
to thank the staff, too, for all the work they have already put
in, and just giving me information up to this point.
Under section 2 of title 14 of--the Coast Guard is
responsible for a wide range of missions, from search and
rescue, icebreaking, and marine environmental protection, to
port security and drug interdiction. The Coast Guard uses a
strategic planning process which determines mission priorities
based on risk, and helps guide the Service in allocating
resources among its statutory missions.
I know Admiral Neffenger is very familiar with this process
from his prior job as director of strategic management and
doctrine, and I look forward to hearing from him on how that
process works.
As the Nation's primary maritime response organization, the
Coast Guard often must surge assets and personnel to respond to
a hurricane, oil spill, or other national or international
emergencies. In 2005, the Service surged hundreds of assets,
including 40 percent of its helicopter fleet and over 5,000
personnel to the gulf coast to respond to Hurricane Katrina,
saving over 32,000 lives.
In April 2010, the Service moved over 150 assets and 7,500
personnel to the gulf coast to lead response efforts to the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Coast Guard is also tasked
with preventing maritime accidents, keeping our borders secure,
and protecting our ports and waterways.
In fiscal year 2011, the Service conducted over 19,000
safety, security, and environmental inspections of U.S.- and
foreign-flagged vessels, and interdicted over 2,400
undocumented migrants and 93 metric tons of illegal drugs. That
is why this subcommittee wants to ensure the Service retains
its core competencies and acquires the assets needed for its
response missions and day-to-day prevention work.
One of the best ways to gauge the Coast Guard's capability
to carry out its missions is to review mission performance
data. In 2011, the Service used 23 different performance
measures to track its success in meeting its missions goals.
The Service stated that it met or exceeded 14 of 23 of its
performance measures.
In December 2012 the DHS inspector general released its
annual review of Coast Guard mission performance objectives for
fiscal year 2011. The report indicated the Coast Guard's total
number of mission resource hours, the number of flight hours
for aircraft and underway hours for boats and cutters had
fallen by 12 percent over the last 5 fiscal years. The
inspector general largely attributed the reduction in patrol
hours to the fact that the Coast Guard's fleets of aircraft and
vessels are no longer reliable, having surpassed their service
lives and become increasingly prone to failures.
A Representative of southern California, I am particularly
concerned about the Service's ability to secure our borders
against illegal drugs and migrants, and maintain its defense
readiness. As the new chairman of the subcommittee, I look
forward to working closely with the Coast Guard and my
colleagues to get new assets operating as quickly as possible,
and to find other ways to improve readiness and enhance mission
performance in a cost-effective manner.
I thank Admiral Neffenger for appearing today and I look
forward to his testimony. With that I yield to Ranking Member
Garamendi.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Congratulations on the chairmanship of this committee, a very
important one in my mind, and certainly for all of the Nation.
I want to also--as fellow Californians, we both realize
that very few Federal agencies are as important as the United
States Coast Guard. We also recognize that our maritime economy
contributes almost $649 billion annually to the U.S. gross
domestic product, and more than 13 million jobs, and remains a
key resource for the prosperity of all of the American economy,
not least of which are the rice producers and farmers in my
district that rely upon the exports. And the Coast Guard has a
lot to do with that.
In the congressional district that I represent we have the
beginning of San Francisco Bay, and one of the most busy of all
the service sectors for the Coast Guard's search and rescue.
Sector San Francisco also maintains critical aids to navigation
that link the ports and the communities: Sacramento, San
Joaquin Ports, the Stockton Port, the Delta, and of course, the
Bay, itself. This vital activity helps to ensure safe and
reliable maritime transportation. And I do like Coast Guard
Station Rio Vista, right on the Sacramento River. Also, we have
the Port of Oakland, the Nation's fourth busiest container
port, and the Concord Naval Weapons Station, one of five
designated strategic sea ports in California.
As we export to the world, I hope this committee will also
look into ways the Coast Guard can increase its commitment to
American manufacturing. The Coast Guard creates jobs by
protecting our waterways and our ports. They can also create
jobs by implementing a stronger Buy America policy, using our
limited taxpayer dollars to make sure that we buy goods and
equipment that the Coast Guard needs from companies that
manufacture here in the United States.
It is no understatement to say the Coast Guard is
indispensable. It is hard to actually imagine the smooth
functioning of the maritime transportation system without a
ready and able Coast Guard. Yet, here we are, Mr. Chairman,
virtually days away from seeing indiscriminate cuts imposed by
the sequestration, cuts that are clearly going to reduce the
Coast Guard's mission, perhaps by as much as 20 percent. And no
one seems really able--at least here in Congress--to find a
solution to this very serious problem.
I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling this
morning's hearing on how the Coast Guard can maintain a balance
across its 11 statutory missions. All of those missions are
important. Not one of them should be subject to the arbitrary
cuts that are coming down. However, they will be in just 4
days. Whether it is catastrophic oil spills, illegal narcotics,
as you said, Mr. Chairman, the interdiction of illegal entry
and human trafficking, all of those things are important. But
all of those things are going to be impacted.
So, what are we going to do? Well, we are going to hear
from Admiral Neffenger. And then I hope we get about dealing
with this sequestration in a balanced and sensible way, so that
the Coast Guard can go about protecting our citizens and
protecting our maritime economy. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the ranking member. I look forward to
working with you over the next term.
Our witness today is Coast Guard VADM Peter Neffenger,
Deputy Commandant for Operations. Admiral, you are recognized
for your statement.
TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL PETER NEFFENGER, DEPUTY COMMANDANT
FOR OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
Admiral Neffenger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning
and good morning to you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members
of this subcommittee. I thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on U.S. Coast Guard mission balance and
allocation of operational resources. I have a written statement
for the record, and will make brief opening comments.
As you know, the primary mission of the United States Coast
Guard is to ensure the safety, the security, and the
stewardship of United States waters. Our oceans, our coasts,
rivers, and great lakes are the lifeblood of the United States
economy, with some 95 percent of all trade traveling by water.
Our waters also provide a foundation for research, recreation,
and advances in technology.
The Coast Guard's service objective is to balance missions
such that limited resources are applied to highest risks and
threats. The models we use are adaptive, with success
predicated upon our complementary suite of authorities,
capabilities, competencies, and partnerships.
We are at all times an arms service, a Federal law
enforcement agency, and a member of the intelligence community.
This is a unique construct in the Nation and in the world. It
allows us to govern the maritime environment and to contend
with a challenging array of maritime risks to people, cargo,
conveyances, our ports, and our waters. Our adaptability
ensures that we address existing risks, as well as those that
evolve over time.
In the Arctic, for example, there is a new ocean opening.
Summer sea ice has diminished, and the region is becoming
increasingly accessible to new and expanding activities.
Resource extraction, cargo transhipment and adventure tourism
are but three areas in which we are seeing increased activity.
And these require maritime governance, and the Coast Guard has
responsibility for this in U.S. waters.
In the drug transit zones of the Caribbean and the eastern
Pacific, we are attacking illicit networks with layered
defenses of our own. It takes a network to defeat these
networks, and we are working strategically and operationally
with Federal, State, and international partners to address
threats long before they reach our physical borders.
The Coast Guard exercises its authorities through a core
strategic framework: prevent and respond. We strive at all
times to prevent bad things from happening: loss of life at
sea, vessel casualties, smuggling of people and drugs, and the
like.
Our marine safety program, for example, establishes and
enforces standards for construction, along with standards for
safe and secure operation or commercial vessels and the ports
in which they operate. This includes a credentialing of
mariners. We seek to prevent casualties at sea, and ensure the
security of ships operating in our waters through oversight,
engagement, and investigation.
However, we have to always be ready to respond when
necessary. And, as we sit here, there are air crews, boat
crews, strike teams, and others ready to respond to search and
rescue cases, homeland security incidents, and other missions
such as environmental response, all on a moment's notice.
I would also like to emphasize the value that partnerships
bring to this prevent-and-respond strategy. We leverage
Federal, State, local, tribal, international, and other
partnerships to improve our operational effectiveness through
depth, reach, and capacity that others bring to our toolbox.
During my time in command of the Great Lakes region, the
operations there, we partnered very closely and regularly with
Canada on search and rescue and other missions. Depending upon
location and nature of distress, these operations often
involved U.S. Coast Guard ships and helicopters, operating
together with their Canadian counterparts. It takes a team
approach to meet the missions that we have, and partnerships
are critical to their success.
Coast Guard sectors administer our authorities,
capabilities, and partnerships on the frontlines in our ports,
along our coasts, and in our inland waterways. As commander of
Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach from 2003 to 2006, I applied this
prevent-respond strategy every day to our missions. I focused
my finite resources against my highest risks.
With the support of the administration and the Congress,
the Coast Guard has made important strides towards improving
our capability. We've acquired new National Security Cutters,
Response Boats-Medium, Fast Response Cutters, Ocean Sentry
Maritime Patrol Aircraft, and the Rescue 21 communications
distress system, along with system upgrades to existing assets.
These acquisitions enhance the Coast Guard's ability to operate
in offshore, coastal, and inland waters with improved speed,
more capable sensors, and better coverage, all underpinned by
greater reliability and safety.
But our missions are conducted by Coast Guard men and women
who are heroic and courageous in the face of sometimes
unimaginable situations of extreme weather, unforgiving
threats, and limited time to react. So I would like to close
with a story about one of our people.
During the early morning hours of December 2, 2012, in the
waters off southern California, SCPO Terrell Horne was leading
a small boarding party to investigate a vessel suspected of
smuggling drugs. SCPO Horne and his crew had just launched from
an 87-foot patrol boat. It was dark, and they didn't know what
they might encounter as they approached.
They saw a panga-type large, open boat with a number of
high-horsepower outboards. They came alongside. The suspect
vessel suddenly increased speed, maneuvered directly at our
small boat and its boarding team, and rammed it. SCPO Horne saw
what was happening, moved forward to pull one of his crew out
of harm's way. He was thrown from the boat, injured severely,
and did not survive. He leaves behind a wife and children, but
will always be remembered as a hero in our ranks.
Now, that case is personal for me. His small boat was
deployed from the 87-foot patrol boat USCGC Halibut, which was
under my command, while serving as sector commander in Los
Angeles and Long Beach. I know firsthand that night operations
are exceptionally challenging. With limited visibility, rolling
seas, and complex threats, our crews must be confident,
proficient, and agile. And we need to provide them with the
best equipment we can. The risks they face are real, and they
deserve our best efforts. So, as the Deputy Commandant for
Operations, I think about that every day.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I thank
you for your interest in the Coast Guard, and your continued
support. And I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Admiral, for your testimony. Before
we get started asking questions here, I would like to recognize
an honored guest, the chairman of the full committee, Mr.
Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Well, thank you, Mr. Hunter, Chairman Hunter.
I appreciate you recognizing me. I will be brief. Thank you and
Congressman Garamendi for holding this important oversight
hearing. That is one of the most important roles we have as
Congress, is to make sure we have aggressive oversight.
And I appreciate your being here today, Admiral, and your
testimony. And I guess you are in a unique position, as being
the former director of strategic management. You planned this,
now you are operations, you are actually implementing it. So
you get to grade yourself on how you are doing.
But it is extremely important, what you are doing, tracing
the history back to the Coast Guard, back to 1789 and that
first--those lighthouses we built. And, in fact, the first
earmark, the first congressionally directed funding was a
lighthouse up in what is now Maine but was Massachusetts. So we
would like to figure out how we can get back to Congress
directing more of those funds to important projects.
But again, what you do in preventing accidents, making sure
the system works efficiently, is extremely important to the
commerce of the United States. And we want to make sure that we
are supportive of you, but we also want to make sure that the
Coast Guard is doing the right thing when they are allocating
resources and having a balanced mission out there. And since 9/
11 I know you have grown significantly, especially in your
security that you provide at our ports, and then the waters of
the United States.
So again, I look forward to working with you, and I
appreciate the fact that Chairman Hunter and the Ranking Member
Garamendi are having this hearing today. So thank you very
much. I yield back.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the chairman. OK, so let's get started.
We are going to recognize Members for questions, starting with
myself. And to touch on what the chairman just said, over the
last decade the Coast Guard, post 9/11, has greatly expanded
its mission, mostly in the security arena. You have added
additional responsibilities, because you have had to respond
and be able to respond to emergent threats.
So the question is, how has that changed you? And has it
taken away from your other missions? Because your budget has
gone up as well, but your needs in ships and in
recapitalization has also gone up as well. So your missions
have gone up, your budget has gone up. But has the budget been
commensurate with the amount of stuff you have had to do, and
that you have had piled on you, as well as the recapitalization
of your ship fleet?
Admiral Neffenger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that
you are right, that our mission set has expanded considerably
over the past decade. And--but so has the, I think, the ability
of the Coast Guard to both understand how to approach that
mission set and to structure itself accordingly for that.
I mentioned that we have a primary mission to ensure the
safety, the security, and the stewardship of U.S. waters. And
by stewardship, I mean both the environmental piece as well as
the management of the waters, the maritime transportation
system itself, because that is under our responsibility, as
well. And in looking at that overarching mission, and all of
those submissions that we have, search and rescue, maritime law
enforcement, drug interdiction and the like, all of that plays
into that overarching mission.
So I think my point in that is it allows us to look
holistically at our missions. I know that there is a
designation in statute that determines Homeland versus non-
Homeland missions. But, from our perspective, all of our
missions are tied to that overarching fundamental purpose for
safety, security, and stewardship.
To do that, we have had to do some reorganization. As you
know, prior to 9/11 we had a different organizational construct
for our shore forces, for example. We had marine safety
offices, which were fundamentally responsible for commercial
vessel oversight, oversight of the activities of facilities
that receive those vessels. We had what we called group
offices, which were fundamentally responsible for operating our
small boats and our patrol boats in pursuit of law
enforcement--near-coastal law enforcement missions, as well as
search-and-rescue missions. And then we had our--of course, our
offshore patrol forces in the form of our large cutters and our
aircraft.
Since the 9/11, since the formation of the Department of
Homeland Security, we have reorganized those forces into
sectors. And our sector commands now really incorporate all of
our authorities under a single operational commander. So, as
sector commander for the Ports of Los Angeles--actually, for
southern California--my area of responsibility was for the
Monterey County line in the north down to the San Diego County
line, so about 300 miles of coast, and it had a commensurate
offshore piece to it, as well. My task every day was to look
across this broad suite of authorities that we have that really
give us the ability to address any threat, risk, or hazard in
the maritime environment, and apply my resources effectively,
whether that was a search and rescue mission or an oil spill or
a potential terrorist attack.
So, I think that the way I would--so the general answer to
that is that we have changed dramatically. We have had to--we
have increased the number of resources we apply to it. I will
tell you, as a former operational commander, you can never have
enough resources to do the things you do. We have a very large
operating area, and we will likely always have limited
resources. But we are also well aware of the fiscal constraints
that we all face.
Mr. Hunter. So let me get more specific, then. Because you
have heard the saying--I think it was Sun Tzu--if you plan for
everything, then you plan for nothing. Right? So you can't
prioritize everything the same. So if you have 11 statutory
missions, with the entrance of Homeland Security 10 years ago
or 12 years now as being one of the primary missions of the
Coast Guard, and your integral role in Homeland Security, what
have you had to give up?
Admiral Neffenger. I guess I would say it is not so much
that we have given up missions, but we have had to prioritize
the work that we do. Clearly, search and rescue will always be
a top priority for us. Someone is in distress on the water, we
will do everything we can to find that individual or
individuals and rescue them.
Security of this Nation is a top priority, always will be,
and we need to do whatever we can to ensure that our harbors,
our ports, our waterways are secure, that we understand the
potential threats that might face us, and so forth, and that we
construct appropriate strategies to combat those threats and to
reduce risk in our ports.
The--but I will tell you that there are things that
sometimes have to be changed with respect to how we operate.
The good news is that we can leverage a lot of partnerships to
help us. So, for example, in our oversight responsibilities for
commercial vessel inspection and commercial vessel
certification. We have worked with classification societies
such as ABS and others to conduct some of these inspections and
oversight responsibilities on our behalf, while still
conducting the periodic oversight of those agencies that do
that for us. We have also looked to leverage capability in our
ports and waterways that local agencies bring to the table for
us, and they can conduct operations and patrols for us, as
well.
What we have done strategically is to look at the range of
missions that we face, the relative priorities of those
missions with respect to safety of life, security of this
Nation, and then we have looked to see who else out there can
assist us in operating. So we are much better at interoperating
with others now than we ever were before. We have much more
established partnerships. We work together in much more
seamless ways in our waters.
Mr. Hunter. Let me ask you this, Admiral, then I am going
to pass it on to Mr. Garamendi. You talked about search and
rescue being your number one priority, as it is, right?
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Life and vessel out there on the water. Coast
Guard reported that in fiscal year 2011 it did not meet its two
search-and-rescue mission performance goals. The Coast Guard
only saved 77 percent of individuals in imminent danger, and
not the goal of 100 percent. Obviously, it is 100 percent. And
the Service was only on the scene of a distress call within 2
hours 93 percent of the time, instead of the goal of 100
percent.
So, with this in mind, and that being your number one
priority, are your performance goals that you currently use
realistic? And do they accurately reflect mission performance?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, those--as you know, sir, those
performance goals are really designed to measure the outcome,
or the ability of us to make a difference to the American
public, not just the measure of our activity.
The goal we set for rescuing people in distress is
admittedly a large goal. We would like to rescue every single
person in distress on the water. That is where the 100 percent
come from. I think it would be unrealistic and unfair to the
American public to suggest that we were striving for anything
else. But we can't rescue everyone in distress. There are times
when people will die. There are times when people will be lost
at sea and we won't be able to find them. It doesn't mean that
we look to save every single one of them. We don't look to see
whether there is----
Mr. Hunter. Admiral, I understand that. And if I could, a
77 is a C+. So my question isn't that--not that the Coast Guard
is not trying to do its job. Is the--are your metrics realistic
metrics? Because if you are getting a C+ at your number one
priority and the thing that you put most of your energy and
resources into, you are still passing. But are the metrics
correct? Because you could probably measure your performance in
other ways that would reflect differently and probably up your
score a little bit, I would guess.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. And there was a time when we
set a lower standard. But let me explain. Maybe it is useful to
take a moment to talk about how these metrics are used.
There is really two ways in which you can measure
performance. You can look at individual cases to determine
did--for example, let's say we have a rescue at sea and it
wasn't successful. The first thing you ask, is there something
that the Coast Guard did that made it not successful? So there
is an individual outcome measure. Did we do the things that we
should have done? Did we act in accordance with our--with known
tactics, techniques, and procedures? And did we do so in a way
that resulted in a successful prosecution of the case? That is
an important measure, and those are measures that we take.
Those aren't captured here.
This measure is really designed to ask, are our strategies
with respect to--our operational strategies with respect to how
we approach our missions, are they adequate for the missions
that we are conducting? So when we say that we only met 70
percent of our goal, 77 percent of our goal to save lives in
distress, it doesn't necessarily mean that we failed at saving
lives in distress. As I said, sometimes there is just no way
you are going to save somebody. By the time you are notified,
they are already gone. Or they are lost at sea in a way that
makes it impossible to find them.
But what it does tell someone like me to do is to look at
whether or not there are systems we can put in place that would
have obviated the need for that person to get lost in the first
place. Rescue 21 is such a system. That system has allowed us
to know more about where people are than ever before. Automatic
identification system.
So I don't know if that helps to explain it, but the 77
percent number is really a target for me, and a series of
questions that I need to ask about the overarching strategy.
And it doesn't really tell me whether our people are performing
adequately. That I measure on a case-by-case basis. It tells me
whether I am performing adequately in providing my operational
forces with the strategies and the policies and/or the
prevention activities in advance of a case that they might
need.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Admiral. I have taken enough time.
Mr. Garamendi is recognized.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, let's see.
March 1st is coming, and sequestration along with it. It is my
understanding that the Coast Guard is going to be significantly
affected by sequestration. Some $340 million will be reduced
from your 2013 budget. That is below the 2012 budget level.
This is about a 5-percent cut, as I understand it, but it does
result, presumably, in a 21-percent reduction in operations,
except for training and for readiness for search and rescue.
In light of these pending cuts, what are your plans to be
able to preserve the ability of the Coast Guard to meet the
highest priority mission requirements? And also, considering
the cascading impact that these reductions will have on the
Coast Guard's readiness and capabilities, how will the Coast
Guard revise its performance measures to reflect the reality of
sequestration?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, sequestration--any time you take a
cut of any magnitude this far into the fiscal year, it is
challenging. As you know, most of our expenses are in our
people and in the operating hours, the cost it is to operate
our vessels and aircraft. So there are some challenges
associated with absorbing that level of reduction. I will--and
I know that the--our Secretary has recently testified to the
Senate Appropriations Committee on the overarching impacts of
those cuts and some of the high-level effects that that will
have.
We are still in the process of determining what some of the
very detailed cuts are, should the sequestration order be
issued this week. But our goal is to ensure that we have our
frontline forces at all times ready to respond to emergency,
whether that is a search-and-rescue case, or any other
contingency that may happen, a natural or a man-made disaster.
And, of course, any terrorist events.
We are also ensuring that we have frontline forces in place
in those areas of risks that we know are of ongoing concern,
whether that is the transit zones in the Caribbean and the
eastern Pacific, or migrant interdiction.
The--with respect to our performance targets, we don't
intend to reduce our performance targets, we simply intend to
report whether or not--you know, what the impact this may or
may not have had upon our ability to meet those targets. So I
think that that will be a more realistic way--certainly more
useful for me to determine, because our performance targets are
set to some extent--well, they are set with respect to the
risks and the threats, keeping in mind the available assets to
apply to those.
Mr. Garamendi. Well, it then appears that there--is there
going to be a 20-percent--21-percent reduction in the
operations of the cutters, other boats, as well as the
aircraft?
Admiral Neffenger. There will be a reduction to our
operations budget. I know that the Secretary testified that it
could be as much as 25 percent. What we are trying to do is
determine whether a sequestration order would allow us to alter
somewhat the types of cuts that we make.
I will tell you that we are--again, we are committed to--I
am committed to ensuring that we have frontline resources at
all times ready to respond. But there will be an impact to our
ability to operate with a reduction.
Mr. Garamendi. Will those impacts be in the search-and-
rescue area, or in the prevention area?
Admiral Neffenger. We will not reduce our ability to
respond to search-and-rescue cases or to contingencies and
emergencies. We at all times have to be ready to meet the
Nation's demand in that respect.
We will look across our other activities to determine
whether we can postpone, alter, or otherwise delay the other
types of activities we will do. We will look at things like
maintenance, deferring maintenance on our vessels, and doing
other temporary measures to extend our budget through the rest
of the fiscal year.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the ranking member. And Mr. LoBiondo is
now recognized.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, thank you. A little bit different to be sitting
here after a number of years, but it feels good. Chairman
Hunter, congratulations.
Admiral, I would like to consider myself one of the biggest
cheerleaders of the Coast Guard and partner with the Coast
Guard. But also when questions come up, sometimes tough
questions--and in this budget environment, and that is--we are
talking about priorities and a lot of things of how we should
handle it.
I have been made aware that over the last couple of years
the Coast Guard has been, on a fairly regular basis, sending
Government employees to Paris, France, to attend weeklong
meetings involving representatives from five small countries to
discuss the regulation of marine pilotage.
I also understand that the Coast Guard has been a driving
force in organizing these gatherings, and is largely
responsible for ensuring these small gatherings continue to be
held regularly.
I would hope that you would tell me my information is
wrong, and this is not the case. But if it is, I am really
confused as to why the Coast Guard is so invested in this issue
when the law is clear. With the limited exception of the Great
Lakes, pilotage in the United States is regulated by State and
local authorities. And I just can't understand why the Coast
Guard is spending these vitally scarce funds to regularly send
Government employees to Paris for a week at a time to meet with
a handful of small countries on an issue that is not the
primary responsibility of the Coast Guard. Can you help me out
here?
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. I think I can, and I think I
can put you in a more comfortable place, with respect to the
issue you bring up.
I will start by saying we have sent one individual to
France for a 3\1/2\-day meeting once each in the past year. So
it has been one individual from the United States Coast Guard.
It has been out of our Great Lakes pilotage authority office.
As you know, the Coast Guard is a pilotage authority itself. We
regulate pilotage on the Great Lakes. We set their work hours,
we set the rates, and we do so in concert with Canada, because
it is a jointly used waterway.
We have also been subject to a number of recommendations
over the years from the National Transportation Safety Board
with respect to pilotage, both our own regulation of pilotage
as well as our oversight of pilotage authorities in the form of
our licensing and so forth of Federal pilots. And some of those
regulations have suggested that there is a need for greater
information sharing among pilotage authorities for best
practice--learning best practices.
So, the purpose of attending this conference--and it is not
one that the Coast Guard organizes, although we participate in
it--the purpose of attending it is to--really, to share best
practices with other pilotage authorities. It is an
international body. It is the only body of its type in the
world in which you can have those kinds of interactions. It is
very similar to the kinds of work we do through the
International Maritime Organization, the International
Association of Lighthouse Authorities, and the like.
So, I would put it in the category of understanding best
practices, understanding what standards exist elsewhere in the
world. And to your point on overseas travel, we are absolutely
aware of the responsibility we have to husband our taxpayer
dollars carefully. As I said, it is one individual that has
attended this.
It is likely not going to happen this year, particularly if
we are under a sequestration order, because we have cut back on
all of our travel. But I believe that it is a reasonable use of
that time, and we get good information out of that. And it
helps us to be better at our pilotage on the Great Lakes. So I
hope that is responsive to your question, sir.
Mr. LoBiondo. Well, it helps.
But I have to tell you that I am concerned that with such
limited Coast Guard oversight, shall we say, of pilots just to
being the Great Lakes, and you being stretched so thin in so
many areas, that is just something that I can't connect the
dots with in my head. I mean we all want to get best practices,
but it is not like you are dealing with the whole United States
of America. We are only dealing with the Great Lakes here. And
I know that we want to be the best that we can be, but I
don't--to my recollection, there haven't been any real
problems. So I would hope you would take a close look at this.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. We will.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you. Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the former chairman of this committee.
And I would like to recognize Ms. Hahn for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. And thank you, Chairman Hunter,
Ranking Member Garamendi, for convening this hearing focusing
on our Coast Guard mission balance and capabilities. I really
want to thank my friend, VADM Peter Neffenger, who has been my
friend since he was captain of the port in Los Angeles during
the time that I was on the city council in Los Angeles. Thanks
for being here today and for providing your testimony.
Statutory mission of the Coast Guard play a critical role
in protecting our Nation. From drug interdiction to defense
readiness to port security, Coast Guard is our best asset to
counter the many threats that we face on the domestic and
international waters. Same time, our Coast Guard is facing
emerging threats that require modern and innovative strategies
in order to remain effective.
For instance, as you talked about, the rising use of panga
boats not only risk pouring tons of illegal drugs and weapons
into our country, but also threaten the safety of our Coast
Guardsmen, as you talked about. The tragic loss of SCPO Horne,
I attended his memorial service and was very moved and very
saddened at the family that he leaves behind. I think the only
silver lining to that tragic event was maybe for a brief moment
Americans began to understand what the Coast Guard actually
does, and the risk that they take personally every time they go
out to protect our waters.
You know, since 9/11 we have focused in this country on our
Nation's ports of entry in beefing up the security. Most of the
attention, in my opinion, has gone to focusing on our airports
and less on our Nation's seaports. I represent the largest port
in the country, the Port of Los Angeles. And I still think we
have vulnerable entryways into this country through our ports.
Without giving away any secrets to those who would do us
harm, are you able to tell this subcommittee what you think is
some of our biggest vulnerabilities that currently exist in our
ports and maritime security? And should Congress be focusing
more on these gaps in security?
Admiral Neffenger. Thank you, Congresswoman. And thank you
for your thoughts about SCPO Horne. I know it meant a lot to
his family to have you out there.
With respect to our ports, as you know, much of that, with
respect to vulnerabilities, is in the classified realm. And I
am always happy to come back to the committee and brief you in
a classified setting as to the specifics with respect to that.
But let me speak in very high levels.
The very thing that makes our ports so powerful in their--
in the economic engine that they provide to this country is
their openness. And that openness is the very thing that argues
against security and safety. So it is--there is a balance
there, with respect to our ports. You can't lock them down in
the same way that you can lock down an airport and expect to
move the kinds of volumes that we move through there.
During the time that I was in Los Angeles and Long Beach, I
think there was a combined total of about 13,000 actual
containers a day coming into the port, not to mention those
that were being moved around, and the like. That is a lot of
containers. And if you tried to lock that all down, it would be
challenging.
So, how do you determine, you know, what is the--how to
protect a port? Well, it starts by looking--getting--really,
gathering experts together to think about the ways in which a
port has to operate. That may sound like a fairly
straightforward question, but it is a challenging question to
answer, if you think about what makes a port efficient, and
then you look at the ways in which that efficiency can be
damaged or is vulnerable.
And so, we spent a fair amount of time--this is a
continuous process--where we look at the vulnerabilities in a
port. And vulnerabilities can be to any type of thing that you
might think about, whether it is a small boat type attack or
some other type of incident. And again, I am talking in the
intentional category here of somebody trying to do damage. And
you look at how those vulnerabilities rank in terms of the
consequence that there might be to the port if something were
to happen.
So, some things could happen that would have very little
impact on the operation of the port. There may be a
psychological effect, but it wouldn't put the port out of
business. Some things could happen that could put the port out
of business for some extended period of time. So that, by
definition, starts to force a rank order of those
vulnerabilities, and it creates some priorities for us.
And then we try to determine what the potential threats
are, you know, who--what might an adversary try to do? And so,
ultimately you come up with an equation that leads to a risk
that you might have in the port. And that equation starts with:
What do I think the threat might be? What are the
vulnerabilities that those threats might try to exploit? And
what is the consequence of that happening?
Now, the threat is the independent variable. We don't
really know what might happen. And we know that there is
intent, and we have seen examples of what people can do around
the world, but we don't necessarily have any specific threat
information. So we game that out. And we game that out against
our vulnerabilities, and we game it out against the things that
we do to try to protect the ports. And in doing we determine to
go back to Mr.--Chairman Hunter's question about our measures,
we set measures that try--that use our existing tactics and
techniques and procedures and strategies, and then we take
those scenarios and we game them against those. And sometimes
we find in our scenarios that we fail, and then we have to
change our tactics and techniques.
So, what I would say is that we know a lot more about the
security of our ports, about the vulnerability of our ports,
about how those vulnerabilities can lead to unpleasant and
difficult consequences for us to deal with. We know less about
actual threats, a lot about intent. And we can game out a
number of potential scenarios.
And we have done a great deal to coordinate amongst all the
various agencies responsible for security and safety in our
ports.
I think that is a high-level view of it. What I would be
happy to do is do some more detailed briefings in a closed
setting for some specifics that we have discovered in
particular ports, as well.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. I know my time is up but, Chairman
Hunter, I would love it if you would consider reconvening this
in a classified setting so we could hear more specifics about
the threats to our Nation's ports. I think this subcommittee
would be the perfect place to hear those facts.
Mr. Hunter. Sounds like a great recommendation to me. We
will take it up.
Mr. Southerland is recognized.
Mr. Southerland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Admiral,
thank you for appearing before us today. I am new to the
committee, so I may ask you some questions that may seem pretty
basic to you, but just to give me some education.
I understand that the topic of sequestration seems to be on
everybody's lips, and we are hearing--you know, I have heard
you mention today that cuts up to 20 percent, perhaps, give or
take. Of those--of the percentage of those cuts, I mean, how
much of those cuts will be done at the administrative level, as
opposed to, you know, right there where the operations are
taking place? How much upstream in offices will those cuts be
administered to?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, our plan is to move as much
upstream as possible. The last place that I will go for cuts is
our frontline operations. And so I think I already mentioned in
response to Mr. LoBiondo's question that we are--we will cut
our nonoperational travel almost completely. There is very
little other travel that we do.
There are certain things that you still have to do, but we
are cutting administrative overhead to the extent possible, we
are reducing nonessential operational activities, and that
would--when I say nonessential, it doesn't mean that you don't
have to do them eventually----
Mr. Southerland. I get it.
Admiral Neffenger [continuing]. But nonessential from the
standpoint of deferring maintenance, deferring activities that
would inspect vessels, deferring other types of activities.
Mr. Southerland. So it sounds like you are very unique,
compared to some of the rhetoric we have been hearing as far as
food inspectors and the like, because that is the frontline. It
seems to me that if you equate your philosophy, it is a stark
contrast to some of the things that we are hearing coming from
other departments.
So, if you, in fact, implement the cuts in a commonsense
approach as you just outlined, first of all, I want to commend
you. It is refreshing. Because we are hearing just the opposite
of that in other departments if we go into sequestration.
And I want to say this as a small business owner and I had
not--you and I just met. You know, I had not had a background
in political service or elected office before. Our family had
small businesses. I just want everyone to know that across
America today small businesses take 15 to 20 percent cuts every
year as standard operating procedure over the last 4 to 5
years. And so I have to say that we find a way to make it
happen. We don't have any choice. And so, you know, I know
these are difficult to do.
I am pleased by your presentation and the way that you
seem--the reasonable way that you seem to go after things. But
I think to make cuts farther away is important.
I wanted to ask you another question. The Service reports
that funding dictated by--or, excuse me, dedicated by mission
on an annual basis, and the DHS inspector general annually
reviews the number of patrol and flight hours dedicated to each
mission. The IG reported that the total number of patrol and
flight hours have decreased by nearly 12 percent over the last
5 fiscal years. What are the main reasons for this? And what is
the Service doing to reverse this trend?
Admiral Neffenger. The primary reason for that reduction is
the age of our assets and the increasing unreliability of those
assets. So as our cutters and aircraft have aged, they suffer
increasing casualties. Clearly these are not expected. And
those casualties tend to be more and more consequential in
their nature.
So, instead of just the--a small part failing, now you have
an entire system failing on a vessel. With the average age of
our cutter fleet--some are above--some are between 40 and 50
years--it is not possible to keep them running at the same
efficiency that they were once before. And, as I mentioned
before, when you have to defer maintenance in order to meet
certain fiscal targets, then that only compounds the problem.
So, that is the primary reason.
What have we done to address that? Well, we have been
working for some time now with the assistance of the Congress
and the support of the administration to recapitalize the major
assets of the Coast Guard: our cutters, our aircraft, our small
boats, and the like. I will tell you that we are thankful for
the amount of recapitalization that we have had so far. And we
are bringing on board quite a new--a number of new assets from
our small boat fleet, all the way up into our major cutter
fleet.
We recognize the challenges of doing this in constrained
fiscal environments, but we know that if we don't recapitalize,
we will continue to have more and more of these casualties, and
continue to fail to meet the operational hour targets that we
have.
Mr. Southerland. Admiral, thank you. I see my time has
expired. And I just appreciate your service and that of the
Coast Guard, especially in my area, living on the Gulf of
Mexico. I appreciate it, and I yield back.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the gentleman. Ms. Frankel is recognized.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.
And thank you, Vice Admiral, for your service and your
colleagues. Just to let you know, my father was in the Coast
Guard. And I still actually have one of his uniforms hanging at
home.
So, I didn't have the exact--I don't want to withdraw a
compliment from you--I didn't have the exact interpretation of
your testimony to mean that the sequestration would not hinder
your operations. But thank you for your efficiencies.
I represent an area that has two ports, and--which is--and
they are huge economic drivers. I represent part of south
Florida. And I would like to know, in your opinion, whether the
sequestration will--or how it would impact our ports.
Admiral Neffenger. Well, again, we are well aware of the
vulnerability of our ports. We are also well aware of the need
to keep them in operation. Fortunately, we have a lot of
partners in ports these days. We work very closely with them.
Everyone is constrained these days, and that is true, and we
understand that other Federal partners, as well as State
partners, are suffering from some of the same fiscal
constraints that we do, as well.
But the upside is that over the past 10 years we have put a
lot of systems in place, a lot of understanding in place, to
allow us, in a limited fiscal environment, when you have to
ultimately reduce some of your nonemergency operational
capabilities, it lets us know where to focus the remaining
capabilities that we have to most effect.
There is always going to be concern when you reduce
operational budgets this far into a fiscal year. And it poses
challenges with respect to how you then allocate the hours that
you can afford to operate. But our goal is to make sure we
allocate those to our most pressing risks and concerns, and
that includes our ports, Congresswoman.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hunter. There are no more questions on our side, so we
will go to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. It is good to see you
again.
You know, I was listening to the questions of the gentleman
at the end. And I want to go back. You know, I don't--I am
trying not to get caught up in this sequester thing, but it is
a little bit more major than I think he described it.
Having been a chairman of this committee, I know that we
have already had deferred maintenance. Am I right?
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir, you are.
Mr. Cummings. And how many vessels--I remember when we had
the Haiti earthquake and we were trying to get to Haiti, and we
had vessels breaking down. Can you describe that to the
gentleman?
Admiral Neffenger. We did have a number of casualties on
the vessels that we deployed to the Haiti earthquake response.
Yes, sir. And it put two of those vessels out of commission
for----
Mr. Cummings. Put two vessels--out of about how many?
Admiral Neffenger. For a period of time. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Out of how many?
Admiral Neffenger. Out of--I don't have the--I don't recall
the exact number----
Mr. Cummings. Just make a reasonable guess.
Admiral Neffenger. We had roughly--I think we had three
vessels that immediately responded, and two of those suffered
engineering casualties during that response.
Mr. Cummings. And so we have been deferring maintenance
quite a while, haven't we?
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. We have deferred maintenance.
Mr. Cummings. And with regard to Deepwater, how are we
doing with Deepwater?
Admiral Neffenger. The acquisition program?
Mr. Cummings. Acquisition program.
Admiral Neffenger. Actually, I think that we have really
done quite well in the last few years. As you know, that was
originally a program that was run by a lead systems integrator,
not the Coast Guard. Since 2007 we have re-assumed the lead on
that acquisition program. We no longer call it the Deepwater
acquisition program. It is really just an acquisition program
to replace our major capital assets. And----
Mr. Cummings. So--I talk about Deepwater all the time in
speeches. So I guess when I tell people to go to Google, they
won't get an update on Deepwater, huh? What do you call it?
Admiral Neffenger. What they will see is they will probably
get a link to our acquisition programs now, across the board.
Mr. Cummings. No, I am very proud of the work that we all
did, this committee did, working with the Coast Guard to make
that program more efficient and effective.
As you well know, nearly 10 years ago the Coast Guard was
required to bring towing vessels under inspection by the Coast
Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2004. The Coast Guard
issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in 2011, but has not yet
issued a final rule. I have asked a number of witnesses in many
different hearings when a final rule would be issued, and I
will continue my effort to obtain today, by which towing
vessels will begin to be inspected, by asking you the same
question. When do you think the final rule will be issued? And
will towing vessels finally come under inspection?
And I want to incorporate in my question does--I mean I--
one of the things that we have heard in the past is there is a
backlog, and sometimes there were personnel problems. Is it
reasonable to assume that under sequestration that this--it
will be even put further on the back burner? If it is still on
the back burner. It may not be there. But we can't seem to get
a final rule, and I am just wondering.
Admiral Neffenger. No, we will not put it on the back
burner. The good news is that the--over the past few years the
Congress has been very generous in providing new people for our
marine safety oversight program, in particular the regulatory
component of that. As you know, that is a very labor-intensive
operation, requires a fair amount of analysis and review in
order to meet the various requirements that exist before you
put potential new regulations on the street that may--that
affect an entire industry.
So, we don't intend to do that. That--and it doesn't suffer
from a backlog. That rulemaking, as you know, sir, is one that
involves an awful lot of details and affects a large industry
that has never been inspected before. We have been working very
closely with the American Waterways Operators, in particular--
that is a representative of that towing vessel industry--as
well as individual owners and operators to ensure that we get
the right mix of inspection, oversight, and applicability. That
makes that a complicated process, by definition.
So, I recognize your--and appreciate your concern with
respect to the timing----
Mr. Cummings. Let me ask you this before my time runs out.
If--assuming we get the rule, say, within the next year or so,
will we have the inspectors, the trained marine inspectors, to
inspect? As you probably know, in the past we have had a
problem with people who are even qualified to inspect. And I
just wondered. Do you--how--what do you foresee for that?
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. As you know, as a result of
your oversight, the oversight of this committee and the
assistance of the appropriations committees, we have been able
to significantly increase the number of inspectors and
inspection-related personnel in the Coast Guard. So we thank
you for that. That has been--and that is done under what we
call our Marine Safety Enhancement Plan, which I think you are
familiar with, sir.
And so, over the past number of years we have added a
significant number of new--over 500 new individuals to the
marine safety program in that inspections/regulatory world.
Some of those individuals are towing vessel inspectors. Not all
of those people are yet on board, for obvious reasons. We don't
have all those regulations in place yet, and so you want to
make sure that you cycle them in. But we have created a towing
vessel center of expertise, we have put people into that towing
vessel that have expertise. And we developed a plan for going
from apprentice to master in the inspection trade.
So I think we are on a good stead. We are concerned about
potential, you know, budget impacts in the near future. We
don't intend to go after any of those new billets that we have
coming on board, and we are doing our best to continue to meet
the requirements----
Mr. Cummings. I see I am out of time. But how are we doing
with diversity? You know, we made tremendous strides with
regard to diversity in the Academy. How are we doing there?
[The Coast Guard submitted the following information for
the record regarding diversity at the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 79555.008
Mr. Hunter. The gentleman is out of time. If you wouldn't
mind taking this for the record----
Mr. Cummings. Yes, but with your permission I just had one
question.
Mr. Hunter. If Mr. Larsen would like to yield to you, he is
welcome to. I would like to recognize Mr. Larsen for 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Admiral, thanks for coming this morning, and a
couple of questions. We put together the bill last year and had
a lot of information there on capital building, acquisition,
and procurement. Two things in particular I was working on I
want to just ask some questions about.
As you know, one of the Coast Guard's missions is to
provide icebreaking services, and including in the Arctic. And
so, I wonder if the Coast Guard--can you answer if the Coast
Guard has looked at the impact of these across-the-board
spending cuts on the timeline for the Coast Guard to design and
build new icebreakers that are needed in the Arctic?
Admiral Neffenger. We have. We don't--as you know, the
President's budget, the fiscal year 2013 budget, included $8
million for survey and design for a new icebreaker. And
although that budget has not yet been agreed to, what we have
done is move forward with preliminary survey and design work.
This is work that we can do that doesn't require an
appropriated budget to do. This is, you know, getting together
with those people that we know have requirements in the Arctic
and determining what initial requirements would be.
Assuming that the budget request is funded as requested, I
don't see it affecting our ability to move forward with a
procurement--ultimate procurement of a new icebreaker, sir.
Mr. Larsen. All right. Well, section 222 of the act that we
passed requires the Coast Guard as well to complete a business
case analysis of the cost of reactivating the Polar Sea
icebreaker and options to maintain her capabilities. Can you
update the committee on how the Coast Guard is progressing with
that report?
Admiral Neffenger. I know that that report is underway. I
don't have the exact date for when that is due, sir. I can--I
will get that for you, what the projected date is. But I know
that we are conducting that business case analysis now, to
determine what the ultimate disposition should be for the----
Mr. Larsen. The sooner that you can at least get back to
the committee----
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir.
Mr. Larsen [continuing]. With an approximate date, that
would be fine.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir.
[The Coast Guard submitted the following information for
the record:]
The CGC Polar Sea Business Case Analysis is underway
and it is anticipated that the final report will be
submitted to the committee by September 2013, in
accordance with the 2012 Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation Act, Public Law 112-213.
Mr. Larsen. If you could. Then on Response Boat-Medium you
mentioned in your testimony the importance of RBMs as one of
the new assets. Section 220 of the Act requires the Coast Guard
to maintain a program of record of 180 boats, unless the
Commandant submits to this committee documentation justifying a
smaller acquisition level.
Does the Coast Guard plan on completing the program of
record of 180 for RBM?
Admiral Neffenger. As you know, that is an exceptionally
capable vessel. And as we field that vessel and put it into
operation, we are discovering that it has even greater
capability than we had planned to receive. So that may allow us
to change the program of record.
I will determine where we are with respect to the report to
the committee, but I think that as we look at that, our general
belief is that we may not have to go to the full 180-boat buy
in order to meet our operational requirements. That would
provide us with some flexibility, with respect to our other
acquisitions. But allow me to get you a specific answer.
Mr. Larsen. Well, please just do that, because the 2012 Act
said that you will maintain the program of record of 180. That
is what we said.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. And I know we owe you a
discussion before we change that.
[The Coast Guard submitted the following information for
the record:]
The Coast Guard's FY2013 President's Budget states
``...in FY2013 the Coast Guard will reduce the scope of
the RB-M acquisition, leveraging FY2012 funding to
procure 40 RB-Ms over FY2012-2013 and close out the
project at a total of 166 boats'' (page CG-AC&I-4).
Mr. Larsen. Yes, all right. Great. And with that, Mr.
Cummings, I would yield the remainder of my time to Mr.
Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Well, thank the gentleman. Tell me about how
we are doing with the Academy. We made great strides a few
years ago, and they worked with the Navy, and I was very proud
of what the Coast Guard did. And I just wanted to know whether
we are continuing that.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. Actually, we have made
significant strides. I can get you specific numbers for the
record, because I don't have them off the top of my head. But
this is, I know for a fact, the most diverse class the Academy
has ever seen. And it is also a class with the greatest number
of women cadets ever, this entering class this past year. And
so we thank you for your attention to that and your ongoing
concerns in that.
Mr. Cummings. You know, back--you know, there was a time
when a lot of arguments were made and they were very insulting
to me, personally, and I am sure to many people. And when folks
said that if you made your class more diverse, the standards
would be going down. That would be class--you know, the SATs
would be lower, and all that. That has not been the case, has
it?
Admiral Neffenger. No, sir. We have not lowered the
standards for----
Mr. Cummings. And I am talking about your classes still
have high SATs, very high SATs----
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very--and I really appreciate it,
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the gentleman. We are going to go through
another round of questions, and I would like to recognize Mr.
Southerland again.
Mr. Southerland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not
familiar, I wasn't serving on this committee when you shared
the story about SCPO Horne. I am curious. It just prompted a
question regarding operations.
When dangerous missions like that, obviously, are being
performed, how do you determine what vessels you board? And
just--and I know this is probably an elementary question, but I
am asking. When you go out in the dark of night on the open
water, I mean, what is the determining factor in boarding a
boat?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, in this case--so I will speak to
this specific case, and then general. In this case, this was an
intelligence-cued boarding. So there was intelligence that a
vessel of this type--and when I say panga-type vessel for--just
for the benefit of those who may not know what that is, this is
an open-style boat. In this case, this boat was some 40 feet in
length. And these are open, and they are really designed to
move quickly through the water with a load of drugs or a load
of--or smuggling people. They are just a big open boat with
high-horsepower outboards on the back, anywhere from one to
three outboards, sometimes four outboards. And they typically
run up in the dark of night along the coast of California,
coming up from Central America.
And so this one, particular one, was we had some
intelligence that there was a vessel of this type out there. We
generally knew where to find that vessel. And it resulted in
that boarding. And so this was a boarding that we suspected
this was a bad agent, a bad actor, we go prepared to deal with
what may be an unsettled situation, in that case.
In other cases, when we are just out patrolling, we may
come across--in some senses, everything is intelligence-cued,
because we know that there are areas where we have greater risk
of people smuggling drugs and migrants. And so we concentrate
our forces in those areas. But sometimes it is a concentration
of forces that then discover activity, not necessarily a
specific target to that vessel. And in that case, we may have
to go investigate the vessel. So you may not know that you have
got an actual bad actor, but you may want to go take a look at
this bad actor. And that may come from cuing from aircraft or
cuing from human intel on the ground, sir.
Mr. Southerland. If the--but as far as--I mean, obviously,
if you have longliners, boats that are operating, they are
businesses in open water. And I understand you do inspections
of those vessels, and I understand that. The process by which
you do that, though, is it a--I mean is that a forewarned
process, or do they know, or does a boat just--you know, do you
come up beside them? I mean how does that----
Admiral Neffenger. You know, it depends on the type of
activity we are talking about. So fisheries----
Mr. Southerland. A longliner. I mean----
Admiral Neffenger. I mean, fisheries, that is a kind of a
unique situation. We are responsible for enforcing U.S.
fisheries laws in U.S. waters, as well as we have certain
international treaty obligations to ensure that what is called
illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing doesn't go without
notice.
And so these, a longliner or a--high-seas driftnet fishing
is a good example. People who are putting these--essentially
these killing machines out into the water that can be 50, 60
miles in length, and they just indiscriminately pick up marine
life, that is illegal by definition around the world.
And so, there are planned inspections, where a vessel knows
they are going to get inspected, they can expect to be
inspected, and then there are the routine--or essentially the
routine inspections. And then there are the unplanned, or
nonroutine spot checks, if you will. So it could be either.
Most times you gain compliance through voluntary measures and
through regular periodic inspections. And then you do spot
checks, just the way any law enforcement agency would do, to
ensure that you don't have a bad actor out there.
Mr. Southerland. Thank you very much, and that was just
from my personal knowledge of how you operate.
My colleague on the other side alluded to my not
understanding the seriousness of sequestration and the
decommissioning of ships. As a small business owner, a three-
generation small business that my grandfather started, I see
decommissioned small businesses all over America going out of
business. And when a small business run by a family, when they
have employees that depend on a paycheck, when they are put out
of business--for a lot of reasons, but clearly because of the
cost of doing business, and it is estimated that a small
business with 20 employees has regulatory costs of over $10,000
per employee--it gets a little bit difficult to hear some of
the things that I have heard.
So, I just want to make it very clear. I understand a lot
about decommissioning, and in my world, the decommissioning of
small businesses, because of the cuts and the pressures of
having to operate in the current environment, as it relates to
sequestration and the 2-percent cut.
So, with that, thank you, Admiral, and I yield back.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the gentleman. Mr. Garamendi is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Admiral. I don't believe you run
a small business. You run a critical part of the U.S.
Government's effort to maintain commerce and safety. It is not
a small business.
Early on it was described that you might be able to deal
with sequestration by dealing with certain administrative and
travel cuts. Is that the only reduction that you will be
facing? Or will you be facing reductions in operations such as
maintenance, and port inspections, inspections of cruise ships,
and the like?
Admiral Neffenger. You know, sir, we are a pretty lean
organization to begin with. So there is not a lot of places to
go for administrative overhead. We try to ensure that we have
as little overhead as possible in our organization, and we put
our activities to frontline operations.
So, any cut to operational dollars is obviously going to be
a cut to certain types of operations. Our goal is to ensure
that the most important and most critical frontline operations
are not affected. So we don't intend to pull any aircraft or
vessels offline. We don't intend to fail to meet our
responsibilities for rescuing people in distress and for
responding to emergencies.
But there will be--there will obviously have to be some
impacts to our other operations. And those impacts are in the
form of things like additional deferred maintenance, perhaps
additional deferred what we might consider nonessential
training. And when I say ``nonessential training,'' I mean
training that doesn't directly go towards maintaining
proficiency in aircraft, cutters, and boats, and other such
things.
Mr. Garamendi. I would appreciate you delivering to the
committee a detailed accounting of changes in operations,
maintenance, administrative overhead, and other activities as a
result of sequestration. Also, sequestration, together with the
continuing resolution, has the unfortunate effect--or,
depending on where you are coming from, the fortunate effect--
of changing your baseline to a lower level. And I would like to
have an accounting, an estimation, of what that means, going
forward. I suspect it will have some significant impact.
[The Coast Guard submitted the following information for
the record:]
The following table summarizes the Coast Guard's
budgetary reductions under sequestration:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
USCG
Account Baseline* Sequestered Amount
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operating Expenses (includes OCO) $3,576 - $195
Environmental Compliance & $14 - $1
Restoration.....................
Reserve Training................. $36 - $2
Research, Development, Testing & $26 - $1
Evaluation......................
Acquisition, Construction & $1,681 - $85
Improvement**...................
Maritime Oil Spill Program....... $101 - $5
Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund... $45 [Included in other
totals]
Boat Safety...................... $116 - $6
--------------------------------------
Total.......................... $5,595 - $295
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Data reflects the Office of Management and Budget's Report to the
Congress on the Joint Committee Sequestration for FY2013 provided to
Congress on 3/1/2013, and are based on FY2012 enacted funding levels
(excluding exempt funding).
** Reflects FY2013 AC&I Hurricane Sandy Disaster Supplemental funding
($274M) and associated reduction.
Under sequestration, reductions will require the Coast
Guard to curtail air and surface operations by
approximately 25 percent below planned levels,
affecting maritime safety and security across almost
all mission areas. This means reducing hours related to
drug and migrant interdiction, fisheries and other law
enforcement, aids to navigation maintenance and other
activities involved in the safe flow of commerce along
U.S. waterways. To meet the budgetary reductions
imposed by sequestration, the Coast Guard will also
reduce administrative/overhead functions and travel,
defer lower priority planned asset maintenance, and
postpone job/technical training activities. The Coast
Guard's objective under sequestration is to preserve
the ability to meet the highest priority mission
activities, including search and rescue, critical
security operations, and emergency response.
Mr. Garamendi. One final--that is the final question. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentleman. I would like to weigh in
here and ask. You say you are going to take a 21-percent cut
because of sequestration, and most of that is going to go
towards operational capability?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, we haven't put a specific number
on it. I know that the Secretary has testified that it could be
as much as 25 percent. As I said before, we are really still
knocking around the specific details as we get closer to the
potential for sequestration----
Mr. Hunter. But I understand you are not going to do any
civilian furloughs, is that right?
Admiral Neffenger. We hope not to furlough any of our
civilian workforce.
Mr. Hunter. But in exchange you would cut operational
capability, right?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, no. As I said, we are trying not
to cut any frontline operational capability, as well.
The challenge is that simply furloughing individuals does
not necessarily provide us with the operational capability we
need. It is the way in which the monies are distributed in our
budget----
Mr. Hunter. Well, I think Admiral Papp has already told me
if you have sequestration--I think you have three ships in
South America. Is that true? How many ships have you got down
in South America, running----
Admiral Neffenger. Well, we----
Mr. Hunter [continuing]. Drug interdiction?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, we--it depends on the time of
year. I would prefer not, in open session, to talk about
specifically what our lay down is.
Mr. Hunter. OK.
Admiral Neffenger. But we have--we have had to--we will
adjust that. That adjusts on a regular basis, as it is. I
suspect that we will have to adjust our present----
Mr. Hunter. But I understand that is going to be impacted
by sequestration.
Admiral Neffenger. It is----
Mr. Hunter. And that is an operational capability.
Admiral Neffenger. That is an operational. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hunter. OK.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Ms. Hahn?
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I had two
more, but we talked a lot about the panga boat threat. I am
glad we are talking about it in this committee. I will give
kudos to my colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, who invited the
chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Mike McCaul,
to, 2 weeks ago, go to the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles
to learn some of the issues that we have in security. But they
got a personal demonstration of one of the panga boats and what
it means.
That incident happened right off the coast of Rancho Palos
Verdes, right where I live. And I think this is a growing
threat, particularly on the west coast. They are smuggling
people, they are smuggling drugs, they are smuggling potential
weapons. And the threat of terrorism, I think, is very clear.
So I hope you continue to give us an update on what the Coast
Guard is doing to handle that.
But while I have you here, one of the things I was thinking
about when you were talking about the mission of the Coast
Guard was, of course, one of your number one priorities, is to
rescue those who are in distress upon our waters. And there was
no more visible symbol of 4,000 people in distress on our ocean
than the Carnival Cruise Line a couple of weeks ago. The whole
country, the whole world, was watching that as it was unfolding
daily. Certainly it was about folks who have chosen to recreate
on our waterways. But for someone, again, who represents
ports--and I have started this bipartisan port caucus--the
cruise industry in Long Beach and Los Angeles is very key to
our economy and our jobs. I think that incident set back the
cruise industry probably a decade.
I know there is probably an investigation going on on what
went wrong, what we can do to prevent it in the future. Maybe
you can give us just a little bit of what your--what we have
learned, what we can do to prevent that, how the Coast Guard
works with the cruise ship industry. I was--you know, just
watching it on TV--I didn't understand why we couldn't--I know
the Coast Guard, I think, came alongside and helped to provide
supplies. Was there talk about actually rescuing those people,
getting them off the ship?
I also was dismayed at the tug and the line that was used
to tow that cruise ship. Did we not have in our arsenal, with
the Navy or the Coast Guard, some more industrial-strength tow
line or tug? Is that all we have to tow a vessel of that size?
That was distressing to me, that we didn't deploy some giant
Navy tug or some other Coast Guard vessel to pull that ship to
where it went. That was--it felt a little like we were, you
know, using, you know, a breakable tow line to tow these
people.
And again, I felt these people were in distress. Thank God
no one perished. But this was clearly people in distress on the
water, and it didn't look like we did all we could do to
actually get those people to--either off the ship or to shore
quicker. What do you think?
Admiral Neffenger. Well, let's see if I can tackle some of
those. Let me start with your last point, with respect to the
towing. I will tell you there is no--there is nothing in the
Federal Government that has the capability to tow that a large
commercial towing vessel does. So you are always better off
going to a large commercial towing vessel. This is a big ship,
though. There is a lot of mass there. So it is not surprising
that you could occasionally part a tow line. That happens
sometimes. The good news is is they were able to get it back in
tow and to carry it in.
With respect to taking people off the vessel, I--you know,
we always start from the assumption that the ship itself is the
best lifeboat. So if you don't have to remove people, even if
they are uncomfortable, even if they are dealing with
unpleasant, perhaps even unsanitary at times situation, they
are still safer on board the vessel than they would be
attempting to take them off that vessel at sea. If you think
about an at-sea transfer, it can be challenging. As someone who
has done a couple at-sea transfers myself, as they move me from
one ship to another, it is--it can be a challenging evolution.
And when you think about doing that with, you know, up to 4,000
people, many of whom are not sailors, are not familiar with
operations at sea, that can be challenging.
So, I think you rightfully note that the good news is is
that there was nobody killed, nobody injured, and only one
person that I think that was removed for medical reasons, but
unrelated to the accident.
As to how the investigation proceeds, as you know that is a
Bahamian-flag vessel. So the Bahamas does have the authority to
conduct--and the responsibility to conduct--an investigation.
We also have responsibility to conduct an investigation. And,
in fact, there are a number of Coast Guard investigators, along
with National Transportation Safety Board investigators on
board that vessel in Mobile, conducting the investigation.
So we will conduct our own investigation in concert with
the Bahamians, as well as we have the option to do our own
independent report. And we are looking at exactly what
happened. We may have some specific reason it happened. You
know, the--I think there was a speculation that there was a
hole in a fuel line. But as to how that hole got there, and
what the procedures were, and all of the chain of events
leading up to that, that is yet to be determined. But we are
going to be very interested in that.
And we are going to be interested to see whether we learn
something about the construction of cruise ships that we may
need to change, or that we may need to alter in--as we look to
construct new vessels and/or look at existing vessels in
operation. All of that may come out of that investigation.
But we are very interested in how these ships operate. We
work very closely through the International Maritime
Organization to set appropriate international standards for
safety of life at sea, and that includes the way in which
vessels are constructed, their ability to withstand casualties
at sea, their ability to withstand fires, their ability to
protect the people who are on board that vessel.
And so, while exceedingly unpleasant for those folks on
board--and I would not want to have been one of those
passengers over that 4- or 5-day period that it took to get
them back to Mobile--I am happy that they were able to survive
that with minimal long-term effect. And again, we will be
interested in seeing what the investigation reveals, and what
our investigators discover in the process of that
investigation.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. I appreciate that. But that is a
little disconcerting, that that is our best form of towing that
we have, currently, on the open seas. Because, as you said,
that was a big vessel, but we do big vessels in this country.
Admiral Neffenger. Well, and----
Ms. Hahn. If we were to have another incident or major
disaster and a large vessel became incapacitated, that is a
little bit distressing, that that is our best mode of towing.
Admiral Neffenger. Yes, ma'am. And the investigation will
look at that aspect, as well. So there may be some
recommendations that come out of that, as well.
Ms. Hahn. I would hope so.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the gentlelady for her question, and we
do look forward and trust the NTSB and the Coast Guard to
conduct a good investigation of what happened.
One final thing here. I would leave you with this, Admiral.
The Coast Guard budget just about doubled over the last decade.
About a quarter of a billion dollars was lost--and I wasn't on
this committee, I got elected in 2008, but about a quarter of a
billion dollars was lost because of acquisition and procurement
boondoggling with Deepwater. You got that on track now.
I would give you the same words that I give my DOD friends.
I served in the Marine Corps three tours overseas: two in Iraq
and one in Afghanistan. Never floated, flew over every time,
unfortunately, so I didn't get the marine part of the Marine
Corps. But I would do everything that you can, and I would
advise the Coast Guard to do everything that they can to keep
operational capability where it is now, especially your
homeland security missions and your search-and-rescue missions.
I think, you know, that is what you are there to do.
And I know it is easy to try to make us--get us worried and
get the American people worried and say, ``This is what is
going to happen under sequester, and the sky is going to
fall,'' but I think when you have a budget double in the last
decade, and a lot of your resources went to nothing a while
back--but that has all been straightened out now--I think it is
incumbent upon the Coast Guard to make sure that they do what
the American public expects of them, even with--if you lose
$200 or $300 million out of this year's budget with sequester
going forward, I think it is--you are going to have to be
prepared, always be prepared, and just make it work.
So, with that, thank you for your time, thank you for your
service to your Nation. And with that, the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]