[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOW TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY, SAFETY,
AND SECURITY OF MARITIME TRANSPORTATION:
BETTER USE AND INTEGRATION OF
MARITIME DOMAIN AWARENESS DATA
=======================================================================
(113-33)
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
__________
JULY 31, 2013
__________
Printed for the use of the
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Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/
committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation
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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
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina
------ 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 RICK LARSEN, Washington
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida, LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
Vice Chair CORRINE BROWN, Florida
TOM RICE, South Carolina JANICE HAHN, California
TREY RADEL, Florida NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina (Ex Officio)
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Panel 1
Rear Admiral Mark E. Butt, Assistant Commandant for Capability,
United States Coast Guard...................................... 2
Stephen L. Caldwell, Director, Homeland Security and Justice
Issues, United States Government Accountability Office......... 2
Panel 2
Bill Vass, CEO, Liquid Robotics.................................. 23
Steve Morrow, President and CEO, Insitu, on behalf of the
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International......... 23
Lisa Hazard, Operations Manager, Coastal Observing Research and
Development Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California, San Diego............................ 23
Newell Garfield, III, Ph.D., Director, Romberg Tiburon Center for
Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University.......... 23
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Hon. John Garamendi, of California............................... 39
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Rear Admiral Mark E. Butt........................................ 40
Stephen L. Caldwell.............................................. 55
Bill Vass........................................................ 73
Steve Morrow..................................................... 78
Lisa Hazard...................................................... 80
Newell Garfield, III, Ph.D....................................... 88
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Rear Admiral Mark E. Butt, Assistant Commandant for Capability,
United States Coast Guard:
Responses to requests for information from:
Hon. Duncan Hunter, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, regarding the number of legacy
Coast Guard vessels with SeaWatch...................... 7
Hon. Janice Hahn, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, regarding grain-shipment safety
zones in the Pacific Northwest and how the Coast Guard
respects the First Amendment rights of water picketers.16, 17
Hon. John Garamendi, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, regarding how close picketers
are allowed to get to ships in the Pacific Northwest... 17
Responses to questions for the record submitted by Hon. John
Garamendi.................................................. 46
Hon. John Garamendi, request to submit a written statement from
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union................ 93
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2266.006
HOW TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY, SAFETY,
AND SECURITY OF MARITIME
TRANSPORTATION: BETTER USE AND
INTEGRATION OF MARITIME DOMAIN
AWARENESS DATA
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 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 10:30 a.m. in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Hunter. The subcommittee will come to order. All right.
There are no Democrats here, but we've been advised. If that's
OK, we can start anyway. Excuse me for not wearing a tie. I had
some neck surgery, and I'm trying to keep the incision open so
it can fix itself.
The subcommittee is meeting this morning to review the
status of Coast Guard maritime domain awareness programs. The
Coast Guard operates a broad array of systems and sensors to
gather data to enhance the Service's awareness of activities in
the maritime domain. At a time when budgets are being cut and
the Coast Guard is being stretched thin, maritime domain
awareness, MDA, provides critical information to more
efficiently deploy personnel and assets.
Although the Service has made progress over the last decade
in acquiring new technology to collect, integrate, and
disseminate MDA data, implementation has been slow, several
gaps still exist, and budget realities mean the Coast Guard
will struggle to achieve its goals for the MDA program.
The Coast Guard currently attracts large commercial vessels
and other potential threats in the maritime domain, but the
Service still lacks a single system of--capable of fully
fusing, filtering, and displaying all MDA information in common
operating picture.
The concept of the common operating picture was also at the
center of the Coast Guard's effort to recapitalize its aging
and failing legacy assets. The goal was to acquire new C4ISR
technology that would enable--recapitalize vessels and aircraft
to collect and fuse MDA information into a common operational
picture, and then share with one another and among shore-side
installations.
The Coast Guard has made progress towards that goal but has
yet to fully achieve it. The GAO recently reported that many
recapitalized assets could not fully share data because they
operate different C4ISR systems at different classification
levels.
Complicating the Coast Guard's efforts to improve MDA is
the current budget environment. Budget constraints have forced
the Coast Guard to drop plans to install upgrades to C4ISR
systems on its aircraft and vessels in the future. Given this
development, I am interested in hearing how the Service plans
to ensure new assets acquired over the next 20 years will
achieve their full capabilities and not suffer from obsolete
technology.
I encourage the Coast Guard to review its MDA and C4ISR
programs to improve ways to deliver these capabilities more
efficiently. Our second panel of witnesses comprises a cross-
section of MDA stakeholders and private industry and academia.
I look forward to their testimony on new technologies that
could improve the Coast Guard's MDA efforts in a cost-effective
manner.
Maritime domain awareness is a critical tool to maximize
the Coast Guard's capabilities, to safeguard American interests
in U.S. waters and on the high seas. If effectively
implemented, MDA can improve the efficiency, safety, and
security of maritime transportation.
I am anxious to hear from the witness on what they think
the future holds for the MDA programs and how we can best move
forward to make sure the Coast Guard achieves the goals it has
for the MDA--for MDA.
With that, I yield to the ranking member, who is not here,
so I will recognize Mr. Garamendi for an opening statement when
he arrives.
Our first panel of witnesses today are Rear Admiral Mark
Butt, Assistant Commandant for Capability of the United States
Coast Guard and Mr. Stephen Caldwell, director of Homeland
Security and Justice Issues at the United States Government
Accountability Office.
Admiral Butt, you are recognized for your statement, and
thank you both for being here. I apologize for not having more
of my side and the other side here, but that's OK. The people
that are important are sitting to my sides here, so they're
here.
TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL MARK E. BUTT, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT
FOR CAPABILITY, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD; AND STEPHEN L.
CALDWELL, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE ISSUES,
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Admiral Butt. Good morning, Chairman Hunter. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify today and for your continued
advocacy, interest, and oversight--yes, sir.
Is that better? OK.
And for your continued advocacy, interest, and oversight of
the Coast Guard's command and control systems. As Assistant
Commandant for Capability, my primary responsibility is to
identify and provide Coast Guard capability and capacity to
meet mission requirements. This includes the very important
ability to discover, correlate, and distribute maritime threat
data and operational resource availability to and from the
operational assets of both the Coast Guard and other Government
agencies. I have a brief opening statement and would like to
submit my written testimony for the record.
Whether responding to a distress call, interdicting an
enlisted vessel, or investigating a maritime infrastructure
threat, accurate and timely information gathering and sharing
across agency domains is critical for operational
effectiveness. The dynamic and demanding operating environment
in the maritime domain requires that our capabilities be
interoperable and flexible in order to deliver the right
capability to the operational commanders at the right time.
The Coast Guard has adopted a strategy that identifies and
fields C4ISR capabilities specific to the asset's environment
and operational needs. We are leveraging advanced technologies
and working closely with our Department of Homeland Security
and the Department of Defense partners to field C4ISR solutions
that fit, are sustainable, and provide us with effective C4ISR.
Allow to me to highlight a few of these.
The simple component of our effective C4ISR is searchable
and discoverable data managed, moved, and formatted within the
common operating picture. This provides operational commanders
and senior decisionmakers with mission critical information
necessary to identify threats and coordinate operations.
The Coast Guard common operating picture allows data
exchanges and system interoperability among shore, surface, and
aviation assets as well as with external partners. It
integrates automatic data feeds from nationwide automatic
identification system, the long-range identification and
tracking systems, additionally, integration of data from
customs and border protection, Department of Defense, and other
State and local agencies. C4ISR systems improves situational
awareness and collaboration across the services.
At our shore command centers, the WatchKeeper System allows
for vessel track viewing and is accessible by Federal, State,
and local partners allowing for coordinated response to port
security threats and search and rescue cases. Airborne HC-144
aircraft with Mission System Pallets and HC-130J aircraft
equipped with the Mission System suite are capable of real-time
upload of the common operating picture track data and downlink
of sensor data on tracks of interests to operational
commanders.
Aboard the Fast Response Cutters, SeaWatch displays common
operating picture data allowing commanding officers to view
vessel tracks and associated intelligence allowing for
interdiction prioritization. These capability reflect the Coast
Guard's path to put the right information at the right place at
the time for our frontline personnel to make decisions that
impact maritime safety and security.
As the Coast Guard looks to the future, we recognize the
challenges and opportunities ahead and are focused on
continuing efforts to improve collaboration and
interoperability. Our effort with CG1 View does this. CG1 View
provides operators with a customizable desktop interfaces which
allows a user to view various sensor and system inputs, such as
Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System and Rescue 21 inputs
for search and rescue, customs and border protection source
passenger and cargo screening data for security operations, and
Blue Force tracking data for coordinated, multi-unit, multi-
agency interdiction operations.
In addition to improved situational and maritime domain
awareness, the Coast Guard is expanding its network-based
connectivity capable to improve direct unit-to-unit
communications as well as the timely exchange of information
and C4ISR data. This approach, among a number of other ongoing
efforts is the Coast Guard's path to a continuing effort to
place the right information at the right place at the right
time for the right people to make decisions that impact
maritime safety and security.
Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look
forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Admiral.
Mr. Caldwell, you are now recognized. You're probably in
high demand, director of Homeland Security and Justice for the
GAO. There's not much going on there these days.
Mr. Caldwell. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We
appreciate that. We've got some other directors, but it's a
busy time, and in fact, I'm testifying before Mr. Meehan's
committee on the Homeland Security Committee tomorrow.
Anyway, thank you, Chairman Hunter and also Mr. Meehan, for
being here and inviting GAO to testify. We're going to be
talking about our the Coast Guard's efforts to develop a common
operating picture, which is one of the important components of
maritime domain awareness. In general, the COP, just to put it
in simple terms, is a graphic display of information from a
number of sources. It's customized by a wide variety of
different Coast Guard users for different purposes and
functions, to execute the Coast Guard's missions.
My statement today is going to focus on four different
systems that contribute to the COP. The first of these is the
C4ISR project. This is one of the biggest ones, within the
larger Deepwater recapitalization program. This C4ISR program
was designed, among other things, to make vessels and aircraft
both producers and consumers of the COP.
The WatchKeeper project is the second one. This is within
the larger interagency operations center program, and this was
to gather maritime domain awareness information and to share it
among not just Coast Guard and other Federal agencies, but
among State and local authorities within key ports.
The third system we looked at was the Enterprise Geographic
Information System or EGIS, and this is a COP viewer that the
Coast Guard started deploying in about 2009, used mainly by
onshore units to customize the COP for mission planning and
execution.
And then finally we looked at ``Coast Guard One View'' in
the earlier part being rolled out. This is the Coast Guard's
newest COP viewer that was just mentioned by Admiral Butt.
So overall, in terms of looking at these four systems and
some of the things they've delivered, there certainly has been
a lot of progress through these systems and others in improving
the COP within the Coast Guard. They certainly have added more
useful data in terms of additional sources, things like vessel
locations and Blue Force tracking, which is the ability to
track our Coast Guard and other friendly boats.
Also they've increased the COP capability by improving the
satellite communications infrastructure. They've expanded the
number of COP users by putting them out on more workstations
out there, so it could be used at most desktops within the
Coast Guard, both headquarters and in the field.
However, for all four of the systems we looked at, a common
problem that we found related to weaknesses in acquisition
management. In general, the Coast Guard wasn't following its
acquisition plans or guidance in several different ways. Some
problems were more significant than others. But these led to
problems such as an acquisition strategy for C4ISR that was
repeatedly changed, so a lot of the vessels and aircraft that
were, at one point, going to have the same system having
different systems, which limits information sharing and
increases the time to pass data across some of these assets.
Another problem was that requirements of non-Coast Guard
users were not solicited when the interagency operational
centers were being developed. This has led to the WatchKeeper
system, which is one of the key COP systems there, not being
used by the other maritime stakeholders it was intended for, so
the information sharing in those centers has not been realized.
Also, another problem was the implementation of EGIS that
was slow and inaccurate. Because of the computer systems it was
put on, it degraded or it even crashed other computer systems
that were in use.
And then finally with EGIS, some of the documentation for
managing that acquisition were not prepared in the proper
order. Variations were made from established policy. If those
were made and fully documented, we would have been fine with
those, but they weren't. So some of the alternative systems
were not examined, and the costs are still largely unknown, at
least when we looked at this system last year.
So overall, these problems have led to a COP that's less
comprehensive, less integrated, and less timely than what we
would have expected looking at the earlier planning documents.
In summary, those high-level plans and requirements that were
developed between 2004, 2005 would have led to a COP that was
seamless across the locations and platforms. While we're making
advances, the COP has not realized its full potential at this
time. Thank you very much. Be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you both. I just have kind of an opening
gambit here. I've had a chance to sit on the Armed Services
Committee. I've had a chance to do time overseas, and what you
see is the different services having problems when they try to
get C4ISR, and they try to do their own common operating
picture, and they have Blue Force Tracker, and they combine
other stuff, and you do the intel fusion, and you want to be
able to see your UAVs and your good guys and your bad guys and
be able to click here and see what grid square holds which
guys, and it seems like the better technology gets.
And the cheaper it gets, the more robust it gets, the
harder it gets for our services to be able to get one or two
contractors together, be they defense contractors or otherwise,
and form a picture that any corporation has day in and day out.
UPS, for instance, tracks thousands of trucks and vans,
airplanes, products, tracks the weather, does everything that
they need to do for a global corporation. But when it comes to
things like making sure that we can see what parts of the
oceans have oil in them or what parts of the ocean have bad
things happen, we're unable to do it.
We spend a lot of money, we come up short every time, but
the lucky part for you is you just started. You haven't wasted
billions of dollars yet like the Army and some other services
have on doing things that don't work yet. OK? So basically what
we want to get into is we just want to make sure that you get
it right from the start, because it shouldn't be that hard to
do.
It may be that hard to do within the confines of Government
contracting, but my advice would be just to work through it and
do what any corporation in your shoes would have to do and get
something that is cost effective and relevant and able to be
upgraded over time so that it never gets old. It's open source,
you can plug stuff into it, and it's secure.
But those things aren't that hard. Those sound hard, but
they might have been in 2003, but they're not in 2013. So the
question is this: In 2011, this is--a few other questions, but
here's the starting one here, Admiral. In 2011, GAO found that
after Coast Guard abandoned its goal of building a single,
fully interoperable C4ISR system--in case anybody doesn't know,
that's command, control, computers, communication. So those are
your C4, then intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance is
the ISR part. C4ISR strategy--in all vessels and aircraft,
we're using the same C4ISR system.
So have you decided on a system to be used by the entire
Coast Guard?
Admiral Butt. Thank you, sir. In 2004--and you look at the
documentation--the Coast Guard was going down the same path as
the other services. What we're going now on is exactly looking
at that open architecture type support that industry uses to
set up, because not only do we have to meet with the DOD
services, we have to meet with Federal, local, and State
partners. So we have both the class and the unclass COPS that
we have to worry about and communicate so that the----
Mr. Hunter. I'm going to interrupt if you don't mind. So
are you saying that it's up the Coast Guard then to make sure
that they match whatever every single State chooses to use for
their local policing forces? So you have to have software that
then opens up to every single coastal State or city or
municipality, organization?
Admiral Butt. Sir, in the port environment, for us to be
able to work with all those partners, somebody is going to have
to do that. And so the way we're setting up the WatchKeeper
program is part of is to be--driving towards that open
architecture to be able to take disparate inputs and then
correlate both the track data, sensor data, as well as various
databases and be able to put it in a format where the Coast
Guard watch standard and the IOC is then able to use that
information in the----
Mr. Hunter. All right. That will never work. There's no way
you can have a software that interacts with every single
agency, organization, or municipality that may or may not exist
among the coastlines to make sure that you don't miss anybody.
Admiral Butt. Well, industry, sir, is coming out with
standards. They're standards to set to, so that's what we're
building the architecture to.
Mr. Hunter. What standards? And when you say industry,
which part of the--because I'm in industry, and I know
standards.
Admiral Butt. It's the Ozone Widget Framework, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Say it again.
Admiral Butt. Ozone Widget Framework.
Mr. Hunter. Ozone Widget Framework.
Admiral Butt. Widget Framework.
Mr. Hunter. OK.
Admiral Butt. Is the standards for it, so as long as the
other partners are going towards that standard, then it would
work.
Mr. Hunter. Who are the other partners?
Admiral Butt. Whether it be State, whether it be Federal
partners, which we're working with S&T on to make sure that the
DHS work in that direction or it would be local partners
getting grants.
Mr. Hunter. OK. So DHS will require anybody that gets
Federal money to comply, theoretically, with Ozone Widget open
architecture?
Admiral Butt. That's the assumption we're working under,
sir.
Mr. Hunter. And that's all going to fit into WatchKeeper?
Admiral Butt. That is the direction we're moving, sir.
Mr. Hunter. OK. So you have decided? So you've decided on a
technology and an architecture now going forward?
Admiral Butt. That is the direction we're working, yes,
sir.
Mr. Hunter. Do all of the vessels and aircraft--are they
going to get this system onboard?
Admiral Butt. They won't get WatchKeeper. They will--what
we're----
Mr. Hunter. Not the WatchKeeper system, but they'll have a
sensor suite to interact----
Admiral Butt. The plan is to move--yes, sir. Every one of
the major cutters, the patrol boats, and our aircraft to have
in the COP available.
Mr. Hunter. So how many would you say have it now?
Admiral Butt. The HC-144s with the missionization pallet
would have it and the C-130Js have it.
Mr. Hunter. So if you gave me numbers, 5 out of 50
airplanes and vessels or what would you say?
Admiral Butt. Eighteen of the medium range planes, 18 of
18, and then C-130s, we've got 8 or 9 out of 22.
Mr. Hunter. And then vessels?
Admiral Butt. The vessels--the FRCs that are coming online
all have it. Some of the legacy vessels have been transitioned
to SeaWatch, and I'll have to get that for the record.
[The information follows:]
As of 01 August 2013, the following legacy Coast Guard
vessels have SeaWatch installed:
LSix 378-foot: Sherman, Mellon, Midgett,
Morgenthau, Munro, Boutwell
LOne 270-foot: Legare
Mr. Hunter. FRCs come out of Bollinger with this in them?
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Gotcha. So they actually install this at the
shipyard?
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir. It's part of the FRC architecture.
Mr. Hunter. Gotcha. OK.
Mr. Garamendi has arrived. I will yield to him for 5
minutes.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Chairman, thank you for starting the
meeting. As I think you know and perhaps the audience does not,
the Democratic Caucus just concluded a meeting with the
President, and it's not good to walk out on the President.
But it's not good to delay getting here, but among the
choices, Admiral and Mr. Caldwell, my apologies for not being
here early on.
Mr. Chairman, there's a statement I'd like to submit to the
record from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Without unanimous consent, I will take it up when he gets back.
My own statement, I won't read it, but I'll ask consent to
get that in the record also for the record.
I'm trying desperately to catch up here with the questions
of--there are some questions that my very capable staff has
prepared, and I'll go with those. If they've been asked and
answered, then let's not proceed with those.
This one deviates--the Coast Guard deviation from internal
acquisition guidance. I think, Mr. Caldwell, you've raised this
issue. The GAO has criticized the Coast Guard from--for
common--deviating from his own internal acquisition guidance
for the development of the program requirements for the new
C4ISR assets to improve its MDA capabilities.
Admiral, do you agree with the critique that has been given
by the GAO?
Admiral Butt. Sir, in general, I agree with it. The
criticism on the documents and the sequencing, there are
definitely reasons as we're trying to push forward that would
allow documents to go out of sequence, and I'm not so sure that
the process actually calls for that, but in general, I agree
with the critique.
Mr. Garamendi. And that--how about the software systems?
Are they moving forward appropriately?
Admiral Butt. The software systems----
Mr. Garamendi. Coast Guard One View software.
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir. Coast Guard One View we're moving
forward with, and we're getting the documentation in place. The
current plan would be to start fielding it at the end of 2014.
Mr. Garamendi. Next question that was developed was the
viability of the systems--system of systems concept. The former
Deepwater acquisition program was sold to Congress on the idea
that it would be--would provide the Coast Guard with a new
system of systems capability, that this new capability would
allow greatly enhanced ability of the Coast Guard to
communicate and function. I think this may have been a question
that was just taken up by the Chair.
If not, my question then is: Admiral, what is the official
position of the Coast Guard with respect to the system of
systems concept? Apparently, that was not asked.
Admiral Butt. Sir, the system of systems concept we're
still going forward with, but over the last 10 years, the
technology has changed, so the architecture of that system of
systems is evolving. So our goal is to come up with an open
architecture system that's going to be able to be moved forward
to the future where we can do technology upgrades to it and not
be tied to any one vendor so that we can take different inputs
both from databases as well as sensors and be able--give that
to the decisionmaker.
Mr. Garamendi. This has been put off to be worked on in the
future. Given the budgets that seem to be present in the
foreseeable future, what effect would this have on the domain
awareness--maritime domain awareness?
Admiral Butt. Well, right now, the systems we're putting in
place have been continuing to improve our maritime domain
awareness, and for an example I can give you, my daughter is a
watch scanner down at Sector New Orleans, and she was there
during Deepwater Horizon, and she's still down there when we
had that oil well that--or that gas well that we had the
problems with last week.
So in discussing, there's a night and day difference of
sector New Orleans MDA capability for those watch standards
between this last week event which is very akin to Deepwater
Horizon, although it wasn't near as catastrophic. So what
feedback we're getting is it's improving, and we're going to
continue to keep improving it. The advantage of going to open
architecture and following the industry standards is I think we
can do it much, much cheaper than what the original estimates
were.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Caldwell, what's your view of all of
this?
Mr. Caldwell. Well, with the C4ISR, it's a very large
problem. Part of it is the management of the acquisition, and
part of it is just keeping up with the speed of technology.
That program--if you look at the baseline for when it was
created--shows the costs have gone up 86 percent from the
baseline, and completion slipped from 2014 to 2027 in the
revised baseline.
There's issues managing that acquisition, but the bigger
challenge to talk about at the higher level, it's keeping up
with the speed of technology, at the same time complying with
the acquisition regs, which is not an easy thing to do.
Obviously it's even more difficult doing within the constraints
of the current budget environment which is lower than it has
been traditionally.
Mr. Garamendi. So they'll need flexibility? Is that what I
heard you say?
Mr. Caldwell. They will, and in terms of the Coast Guard
One View, which is the newest viewer we looked at, we wouldn't
have had an issue if the Coast Guard upfront had said, ``We're
going to deviate from certain parts of the acquisition process
for these reasons.'' But those justifications weren't developed
and documented until more than a year after the program
decisions had already been made.
Mr. Garamendi. OK. I'll yield back, and then when our
colleague finishes, I'll come back for another round of
questions.
Mr. Hunter. Mr. Meehan is recognized.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank you,
Admiral, for your service to our country and in uniform and
those of your colleagues who are here, and I appreciate the
tremendous challenges that are faced in securing our homeland,
particularly on its borders.
One of the areas that frustrates me frequently, though, in
my capacity in homeland security as well is the myriad efforts
that we have to sort of integrate State and local and our
partners in a way that effectively works, not only that we
integrate them so that they effectively communicate among each
other, but that we're actually funding missions in which
there's desired information that's being put to use.
We're having great frustration in dealing with this whole
concept of fusion centers in which we are supposed to be
collocating Federal, State, and local assets, and they're
supposed to be discussing things among each other, but it's a
hard time getting a commonality of agreement about what the
real purpose is, what the mission is.
And yet we go back, unfortunately--I participated in the
hearings on homeland in which we dissected the failure to
communicate about certain bits of information, which caused
many people to believe that some of the issues in Boston
recently may have been able to have been maybe addressed
perhaps if we had better communication.
So I'm really asking you just about the WatchKeeper
program. Now my own port of Philadelphia--when I was the U.S.
attorney, we had a great relationship with the Coast Guard,
they were there, they were partners in a variety of different
things, but I don't know how you're operating today with the
fusion center, which if I'm correct is probably just a few
blocks away if you known about what's going on in Philadelphia.
What's your experience overall with the ability of State and
locals to become partners with your WatchKeeper program and it
isn't giving them information that people are finding necessary
and relevant to their missions?
Admiral Butt. Sir, it's a great question, and Philadelphia
and the whole sector, Delaware Bay layout is very interesting,
because you have the tri-State region, so it's probably one of
our hardest AORs to actually go and try to figure out the
fusion.
What WatchKeeper has done for us, again, is to put the
backbone in place so that we can pull sources from sensors and
from databases to be able to provide the users. So that's--the
baseline WatchKeeper is in place and starting to do that. Now
the front end of that, to give the users the ability to be able
to use that information, is what we're working on with CG1
View, because the viewer for WatchKeeper, as it was delivered,
as my daughter puts it, is clunky. So this was--gives us the
ability to actually gets toward that information better.
Now the other----
Mr. Meehan. What is it that you're trying to bring, though,
to the attention of, say, a local fusion center? That's what
I'm looking at. We know--is it the nature of the type of cargo
that's coming up the port or----
Admiral Butt. It can be that. It's basically anomaly
detection is what you're looking for. Do you have boats that
are in places they shouldn't be? Do you have cargoes or
passenger manifests or people coming in that it doesn't make
sense and being able to then get that information, raise those
flags, and get that information to the decisionmakers that can
do something about it. That's really the circle that we're
talking about here.
Mr. Meehan. But what it seemed to me--I mean we're talking
about, as you stated, the tri-State region in which you're--you
could spend as much time sending that information, trying to
have somebody figure out what it means as it would be you would
be you would scramble your own asset out there to do a visual
inspection and look at it if you saw an anomaly, right?
Admiral Butt. And that would definitely be one of the tools
the operational commander could use depending on the anomaly,
yes, sir. So what we're trying to do is to get that so we can
fuse it. Now with WatchKeeper, we put the baseline capability
out. Now I need to back, and we need to talk to our partners
across the board, capture their needs, and be able to get it so
we can get that data fused.
We have a program up in Seattle right now that we're
working with DHS S&T on through the university programs and the
Port of Seattle to do just that, is to find the other partners'
needs up in the Seattle area and expand it out. The other thing
we've put into place Coast Guard-wise is using a COPs tool--is
the ability to capture that information and prioritize it.
We didn't have that business process in place till
recently. So now I have a mechanism for going out through DHS
S&T to start capturing our port partner needs, and we have a
tool for tracking and prioritizing the incorporation of those
needs----
Mr. Meehan. In other words, you would work with the other
participants in the activity of that port to ask what it is
that they would be looking for in the form of specific
information?
Admiral Butt. Specific information or from the databases or
sensor information from the cameras and radars, yes, sir.
Mr. Meehan. OK. Well, I'm--maybe Mr. Caldwell--my time is
up, but you've looked at this issue from GAO, and it points
to--I mean I don't think it's a lack of effort on the part of
the Coast Guard. I think it's a lack of the ability for some
kind of fusion to take place in which information is being
developed that pertinent and relevant to what the State and
locals are supposed to be generating, and we're--it's as much a
problem on the State and local side. I'm looking for them to
define what we're trying to accomplish. In the end, what is it
that we are doing? Can you tell me what you found by your
review with the GAO in this issue?
Mr. Caldwell. Yes. In the port environment, the fusion
centers are generally called interagency operation centers, and
there's some very impressive ones out there made of brick and
mortar. The money ran out, so they went to a more virtual
model. But if you went to one of the earlier, more successful
ones like SeaHawk in Charleston, it was relatively expensive to
build and operate.
There was a lot of money put into it as a prototype, and
those funds actually included some operating costs to get State
and locals in there 24/7. You had a very healthy kind of 24/7
environment. Moving forward, we're no longer funding State and
locals to actually participate in these things in terms of
those salaries, so you get a little bit of a drop in----
Mr. Meehan. They dropped off? Did you see a big drop-off
from State and locals?
Mr. Caldwell. We didn't track that in actual numbers, but
just as a general trend, I think we are seeing less
involvement. We were just in San Diego, for example, about a
month ago doing some of our audit work on the small vessel
threat.
And one of the issues there is that State and locals are
not there as often as they used to be. They do have enough room
in that interagency operating center that they can ramp up and
they can surge and they can add places for other Federal
agencies like the Navy or FBI or the Port of San Diego Harbor
Police to come in there. We did still find there was a healthy
relationship out there, but in terms of the actual using the
WatchKeeper software to share information, we did not find
that.
The good news about WatchKeeper is it will standardize some
of the command and control systems throughout the Coast Guard
sectors, because the plan is to get it out to all 35 Coast
Guard sectors. The jury is still out on whether there will ever
be the interagency Federal, State, local that they were
intended to be. There were 233 port partners who had access to
the WatchKeeper system; 192 of those had never even logged onto
the system----
Mr. Meehan. And that goes into the point that I was making
earlier about we're generating information, but it isn't
relevant to--and in a time in which we're already sort of
collocating facilities, the cost associated to the placement of
those is a precious item, and that's why I used the example.
And Admiral, I would appreciate it if you would just look into
how the fusion center and your Philadelphia-based efforts are
collaborating.
I mean one--the idea of getting people from these assets to
collocate in your facility when right down the street you have
a fusion center which may or may not be getting the full
complement of State and locals that they need, seems to me that
this is the problem that we have, and I don't blame the Coast
Guard; I blame the totality.
There's always a competition that's taking place among data
systems that say, OK, we've got this great data, use our
system, and people aren't trading information. And most of the
time, it's not an issue, and we may have that one occasion
where somebody looks back and says, hey, this information was
contained in the data system, and had it been appropriately
communicated, it could have sent a signal to us that we should
have looked into something, and it's only in the aftermath of
an incident like Boston that those things make sense.
So I know there's value, and I appreciate your efforts, but
I think this is an issue we've got to continue to look at.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Hunter. Thank the gentleman.
I've got a question. I was out in Palo Alto a few months
ago, and I saw--in fact, our next panel has some folks from
Liquid Robotics, and they have these surfboards that--they're
in the ocean, they have sensors on them, and we stood there,
and I almost got to meet the guy that invented Java which was
pretty interesting for a computer science guy. The guy that
literally invented the programming language called Java was
at--works there.
So he was there. He was gone by the time we got done with
our little tour, but you can look up at the flat-screen TVs and
you can see and monitor every single one of their floating
vehicles. You can see them all, literally, at any given time on
the screen floating around the world. So this--and these aren't
expensive. It's not crazy to do. In fact, they're extremely
inexpensive. They can test the water, they have cameras on
them, they can look at the water, they can see sheen--an oil
sheen or any other kind of spill on the water.
They can test the water, they can test weather, they can do
a lot of different things, and it takes no people whatsoever to
do those. And you can literally have a thousand of them on the
ocean at a time or 10,000, however many you may think that you
need. My question is this: If you were a big corporation and
your job was to take care of the oceans and to take care of the
American waters and you had shareholders, what kind of software
system would you get to do this? Who would you get?
You might not go to--and Mr. Caldwell, I'd like to ask you
first. You wouldn't necessarily go to a number of great
contractors who I will not mention here that a lot of folks
around here use and are great people. But as a corporation you
might go to people in industry and get maybe a different look
at this and a different product. So my question is then: If you
were in real life and not Government with an infinite supply of
money and you could go over deadline over and over, and over
budget over and over and over, but if you were in real life,
what would you do here?
Mr. Caldwell. I'm not one of our IT experts within GAO, but
you're going to need an open architecture so that as things
change, they can work new systems in and out of it, Web-based,
cloud-based. But then obviously you've got to ensure a secure
site if you are doing law enforcement and military missions.
Mr. Hunter. Admiral.
Admiral Butt. Sir, specifically when you're talking
autonomous surface and underwater vehicles, my major concern
right now as we're trying to figure out how to incorporate this
into our CONOP is the fact that like with the UASs and the
national airspace, the technology has gotten way ahead of the
laws for governing vessels. So what these things are and how
they can be utilized is still open in a lot of ways. So we're
not even sure what they constitute right now as far as what
type of vessel if they're a vessel.
Mr. Hunter. I'm not talking about you learning how to
regulate a new and amazing technology. What I'm saying is why
don't you put it to use.
Admiral Butt. Well, the question is, sir: If--what it is
then determines how it can be used. What I'm getting at is the
first lawyer answer I got on this stuff because it doesn't
carry cargo and it's not manned is it's sea debris. So now to
take that a step further, sea debris--I put it in the----
Mr. Hunter. We are deep in Government time right now.
That's what that means. You really call it sea debris because
there's no other nomenclature for it?
Admiral Butt. That was the legal definition we got back.
That creates a whole lot of questions when you go that
direction. So we're in a place where----
Mr. Hunter. The Government is ridiculous. It really is.
That is insane, but go ahead. OK.
Admiral Butt. So figuring out what this stuff is and how it
can be used comes into play before we actually start utilizing.
Now can it give me a potential? You betcha, because I see those
things as potentially being the same----
Mr. Hunter. Let me ask you. I don't understand. I don't
understand. Just because we work for the Government--I work for
the people, you indirectly work for the people--that doesn't
mean we can't use common sense. So the fact that we don't have
a definition for something right now that exists in our
guidebooks that we have to look at to know what things are
doesn't mean that the Coast Guard shouldn't be jumping on this
thing before anybody else does.
The Coast Guard should be the ones who experiment with this
type of technology, who put it to use, who save a lot of money
doing it in the beginning. It doesn't have to go through any
Government contractors at all because it's just out there
sitting, waiting for you to buy it. You don't have to
necessarily know what to call it to know that it could save you
lots of money, make you very efficient and more effective on
the oceans, right?
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir. And----
Mr. Hunter. Because we don't----
Admiral Butt. Now you're at the R&D phase, and we are
working with NOA on this program.
Mr. Hunter. So what----
Admiral Butt. Because we're trying to define it.
Mr. Hunter. What I'm getting at, Admiral, is it's too easy,
meaning you don't necessarily need NOA either. If the Coast
Guard would just go and get these like other organizations have
and says let's just use them, you don't necessarily know--have
to know what to name it yet in the Coast Guard dictionary,
right? It's obviously not sea debris, right?
Admiral Butt. That's true.
Mr. Hunter. It's an unmanned floating vessel, whatever you
want to call it. I'm sure they'll have a cool name for it. The
point, though, is that you should be on the cutting edge. These
things are cheap, it doesn't take any defense contracting to do
it, you don't have to do anything crazy to bring these onboard,
to be able to track them on a wall screen. Literally, right
here if we had a laptop hooked up, we could watch them, watch
these things float about the ocean.
My point is this: Working for Government has made everybody
slow and almost unable--there's no way we can keep up with the
technology that's out there. So I think the most important
thing for this entire system is that it's open architecture. It
has to be open so that anybody over the next 50 years can plug
in whatever they want to into this, and you can use these
unmanned floating vessels--there, I just got--UFVs, how about
that? Unmanned floating vessels. You can use those--you can do
a lot of different things. Just don't do what the other
services did. Otherwise you're going to sink billions and
billions of dollars and have something that does not work,
because this is hard what you're trying to do, but it's not too
hard. I mean companies do this all the time.
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir, and that's why we're working with
NOA on it to be able to start to understand that what we don't
have----
Mr. Hunter. It's not too complicated. I can tell you it's a
floating surfboard with wings under it that has sensors on top.
That's all it is. It's not crazy. They can tell you how hot or
cold the water is and take pictures. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to
tell you how to use it or implement it, right? It's not that
hard.
Admiral Butt. It's not that hard to actually get the stuff
and have it sensing. The challenge becomes right now in our
most threat environment, how do I distinguish--if I'm using,
for instance, sonar data from them, how do I distinguish the
sound of a fishing vessel that's engaged in legitimate fishing
versus a fishing vessel that's engaged in trafficking. I know
there's a fishing vessel there. It triggers that, but it
doesn't do much than that at this point in time.
So trying to figure out how that plays in the overall
scheme of accomplishing the mission is what we're still
wrestling with. The beauty of it is we're working with NOA to
get an understanding of the capabilities of these, and then as
we learn that, we can figure out how to incorporate it into the
mission set. So I'm not saying that we don't have an intention
of doing that in the future, but right now we don't have a
vision of how it helps us accomplish the mission.
Mr. Hunter. OK. Well, I'd be happy to help you with that.
Admiral Butt. There's a lot of people, sir, that are--
really want to help us with that.
Mr. Hunter. I recognize Ms. Hahn if you're ready. If not, I
can recognize Mr. Garamendi.
Ms. Hahn. I was born ready.
Mr. Hunter. Good.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So I obviously believe that this security of port should be
our top priority. Our PORT Caucus, which is now about--actually
about 90 members strong, Republicans and Democrats who have
joined together just to focus on our ports. Security is a big
issue. I represent the Port of Los Angeles, America's port, but
I also believe that the First Amendment rights of our port and
maritime workers must be respected, and I was concerned when I
learned that the Coast Guard issued this new rule expanding
safety zones around grain vessels in the Pacific Northwest.
So I'd like to know from you what data that you can provide
that points to major safety or security issues that have
surface that would necessitate an expansion of these safety
zones. And how is the Coast Guard working with ILWU to ensure
that their First Amendment rights are not infringed upon,
particularly their need every once in a while to engage in
water picketing?
Admiral Butt. Ma'am, I'm going to have to get back to you
on the record for that. I wasn't prepared to go there.
Ms. Hahn. On both those questions?
Admiral Butt. Yes, ma'am. I wasn't ready to go there.
Ms. Hahn. OK. So you asked the wrong person who was ready.
Mr. Hunter. Is that it, Ms. Hahn?
Ms. Hahn. That's it.
Mr. Hunter. Mr. Garamendi is recognized.
Mr. Garamendi. I was going to ask a similar question. For
the record, I will submit the question to you. It has to do
with the new rule of how close picketers can get to ships that
are coming in and out of ports, particularly in the Northwest,
a very, very important question that we would like to have
answers for. I see your staff behind you writing down
questions. I'll just hand you the paper, and I'd expect you to
get back to us forthwith like this week.
Admiral Butt. I certainly will do that.
[The information follows:]
Response to Part 1
There is some misunderstanding regarding the Coast
Guard's recently reissued grain-shipment safety zones
in the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. The Coast
Guard's temporary interim rule (IR) published on June
4, 2013, did not ``expand'' the area of the vessel
safety zones promulgated in January 2013. The safety
zone distances for grain-shipment vessels remain
unchanged (500 yards ahead of the vessel, and 200 yards
abeam and astern). Instead, the June 4, 2013, IR carved
out a smaller class of vessels--``grain-shipment assist
vessels''--from the definition of the larger group of
grain-shipment vessels. Shorter safety zone distances
were assigned to these smaller vessels (100 yards
ahead, 50 yards abeam and astern). The Coast Guard made
this change because the existing 500/200 yard safety
zone was disproportionately large for these smaller
vessels, and it was not the intent of the Coast Guard
to enforce that size safety zone around them. Under the
June 2013 IR, protestors may come closer to grain-
shipment assist vessels than under the rule published
in January 2013. Unfortunately, the optics of
establishing a new category of vessels in the
regulation text, along with new enforcement of the
grain-shipment assist vessel safety zones, gave the
appearance of ``expanding'' the safety zone
applicability when that was not the case.
Coast Guard on-water observations of navigational risks
support the Coast Guard's decision to keep grain-
shipment assist vessels within the safety zone, to
reduce the risk of collision. River and bar pilots have
raised safety concerns with navigating near vessels
involved in protest activity. The pilots are extremely
knowledgeable about the unique hazards of navigating on
the river and the maneuvering characteristics of deep-
draft bulk carriers and assist vessels such as towing
vessels and pilot boats. Additionally, there have been
two cases where vessel operators failed to heed
multiple warnings and violated the safety zone by
maneuvering in front of grain-shipment vessels, placing
themselves, and potentially the grain-shipment vessels,
in danger.
The IR is intended to ensure that members of the
maritime public, those participating in protest
activities on the water, law enforcement personnel, and
vessel crews are not injured. Recreational boating,
fishing, and protest activity afloat in these safety
zones is particularly hazardous because of the effects
of strong river currents, the maneuvering
characteristics of grain-shipment vessels, and the
safety sensitive mid-stream personnel transfers
conducted by grain-shipment assist vessels with which
recreational boaters and protesters may be unfamiliar.
Both grain-shipment vessels and grain-shipment assist
vessels require sufficient room for maneuverability, to
avoid collisions and minimize and mitigate other
navigational risks. These vessels cannot stop
immediately or make the sharp course adjustments that
smaller motor vessels--such as recreational boats--can
make.
Response to Part 2
The Coast Guard respects the First Amendment rights of
protesters. In preparing this temporary rule, the Coast
Guard carefully considered the rights of lawful
protestors. The safety zones created by this rule do
not prohibit members of the public from assembling on
shore or expressing their points of view from locations
on shore. On the water, protestors may assemble in
locations other than the established safety zones. In
addition, the Captain of the Port has, in coordination
with protestors, identified waters in the vicinity of
these safety zones where those desiring to do so can
assemble and convey their messages to their intended
audience (including incoming grain-shipment vessels and
grain-shipment assist vessels) without compromising
navigational safety. The temporary interim rule
identifies a point of contact for protestors to
coordinate protest activities so that their message can
be received without jeopardizing the safety or security
of people or property in the area. Furthermore, the
safety zones are only enforced when grain-shipment and
grain-shipment assist vessels are actively maneuvering.
Response to Part 3
The safety zone extends to waters 500 yards ahead and
200 yards abeam and astern of a grain-shipment vessel.
For grain-shipment assist vessels, the safety zone
extends to waters 100 yards ahead and 50 yards abeam
and astern of the vessel. The public cannot enter into
these safety zones without prior Captain of the Port
authorization, in accordance with the process set forth
in 33 CFR Sec. 165.T13-239.
Mr. Garamendi. OK. I want to pick up where Mr. Hunter had
taken this--Chairman Hunter had taken this question, which is
new technologies that are available--readily available today.
The U.S. Navy has spent a great deal of time, money developing
not only the surface programs that Mr. Hunter talked about, but
also underwater, unpersoned vehicles--we don't want to be
sexist here, so we'll call them unpersoned vehicles--so that
they might be available to be used for a variety of purposes.
Not wanting to plow the same field twice, but I would
really like to see a further discussion--not necessarily a
hearing, but a further discussion with the top command at the
Coast Guard about how it can be flexible enough in its thinking
about the ways in which you can accomplish your goals. Mr.
Hunter was talking about surface observation. You said you
would know whether there is a fishing boat nearby.
Underwater vehicles can also give you valuable information.
You may not know whether it is a fishing boat or somebody
intent upon bringing in contraband, but at least you know where
it is, and you might be able to target it. So there's a whole
series of issues that have to do with these new unpersoned
vehicles, both surface and underwater and air. So further
discussion should be forthcoming if you could take that into
submission and get back to us on that, perhaps we'll call a
hearing or at least an informal discussion about it.
Secondly, a similar question has to do with the U.S. Navy's
use of unmanned drones--aerial drones. We'll call them
unpersoned aerial drones. They are--will very soon be fielding
a Global Hawk Naval version, which they call BAM, B-A-M. It has
extraordinary capability to do many of the things that the Navy
has set out to--excuse me--the Coast Guard has set out to do on
its own. And the question I would ask without expecting an
answer today is: What is the Navy and the Coast Guard doing
together to utilize unmanned, unpersoned vehicles both
floating, underwater, and aerial to fully comprehend the
mission awareness situation.
Admiral Butt. Well, sir, actually when it comes to the
UASs, that does fall under my portfolio, so I'm able to discuss
that. We are currently working with the Navy. We have liaison
officers at Pax River embedded with their programs to go and
work with them to see how we can utilize it with the Coast
Guard.
But post-9/11, because of the advances in the intelligence
community, for a lot of these assets out there, we already have
access to the information. We don't have to actually field the
assets ourselves to get access there. So as we're going
forward, there may be several ways I can figure out if there's
a fishing boat at this point in space, and it doesn't
necessarily have to be any one asset that the Coast Guard
fields.
Mr. Garamendi. I would like a further discussion with you
about the integration of the Coast Guard and the Navy with
regard to their unpersoned vehicles.
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Garamendi. Aerial and otherwise.
Admiral Butt. We'd be happy to do that.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you.
Yield back.
Mr. Hunter. Ms. Hahn is ready again--is recognized.
Ms. Hahn. Mr. Caldwell, you've done a report on port
security, and one of the things I--as I said earlier, I'm still
very concerned about--is the security at our Nation's ports. I
think our ports are some of the most vulnerable entryways into
this country, and since 9/11 it seems like most of our
attention has been focused on airport security and not so much
port security.
Could you maybe just touch on where you think we still have
some gaps in port security and if it's something that Congress
should address going forward?
Mr. Caldwell. I testified for this committee last year on
the 10 years since MTSA came into place. If I could just give
some high-level comments, I think that part of the challenge
now is sustainment. So we spend a lot of money to put programs
out there, but maintaining them and keeping them, that's an
issue.
It's an issue with the private sector and port authorities
as well. As you know, they've got port security grants to put
security improvements in place, but the moneys generally aren't
used to maintain those and keep them up. So just maintaining
Coast Guard security operations is a challenge. They're not
necessarily based on actual threats as much as deterrence and
improving maritime domain awareness, for example, escorting
certain vessels and things like that.
And right now the Coast Guard's pretty pressed to keep up
the level of effort it had a couple years ago, particularly
with small boat escorts. We've seen some positive things. When
I was just in San Diego, CBP and Coast Guard were doing joint
patrols just to try to save resources and maintain both of
their efforts. But it's critical for sustaining the efforts we
have and keeping some kind of surge capacity.
So we're operating on a lower level, which we have to do
with the budgets we have now. But it's important to maintain
the ability to surge if we have a reason, like we actually get
actionable intelligence on a threat or we have some kind of
incident.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you.
Did you have a comment on that?
Admiral Butt. Well, ma'am, one of the things we're doing to
try to help with the coverage because of the budget pressures
and the number of patrols is we're working with the university
programs from DHA S&T and with the University of Southern
California to utilize game theory as a way of optimizing and
scheduling our patrols that make it look entirely random and
shows--makes it harder for somebody to anticipate where the
patrols will be.
So even though we're having to slide back operations a bit,
what we're working on is ideas that will allow scheduling that
gives the appearance that we're out there a lot more than what
we are, because it puts the boat in the right place.
Ms. Hahn. And of course, Brookings Institute released a
report last week or the week before that highlighted
cybersecurity as being a big weakness at our ports and another
area of vulnerability. So I introduced a bill last year that
passed the House and got stalled in the Senate, and I'm
reintroducing it this year to ask our Department of Homeland
Security to take another look at our parts some 11 years after
9/11, reassess, and see if there might be some gaps in our
security that Congress could take another look at.
I know because of resources we're cutting back. I know
Congress after 9/11, one of the first laws they passed was 100
percent container screening, which was clear this
administration under Janet Napolitano pretty much told us it
wasn't going to happen, it wasn't reasonable, not something
they were even going to attempt to do, and again, the smarter
approach, the layered approach, direct-based point of origin
philosophy.
But I still think all of these have some vulnerabilities. I
feel like those could be overcome, and I would like to see us--
I think the technology exists, frankly, to screen containers
much more than 2 or 3 percent, and I think we could do it
without slowing commerce, and I think we could do it in a way
that would make more sense.
Because one dirty bomb coming in a container in the Port of
Los Angeles and Long Beach could cripple our national economy,
could kill--we have 5,000 men and women that work on the docks
every single day at least, and we have these--some of these
ports are in residential neighborhoods. I think it's still a
real concern and threat.
I know it's something that keeps me awake at night as I
also live within a stone's throw of the Port of Los Angeles. So
just want to know that I'm moving forward, continuing to push
on another assessment, another look at port security and
whether or not there are gaps that we could be told about in a
classified situation and we could move to address that.
Admiral Butt. Aye, ma'am. I'll take that back. And with
regard to cyber, one of the things that affected our schedule
in deploying these C4ISR systems is since 2004 the threat has
become real, and so we've incorporated cyber defense into
WatchKeeper and the other systems we're putting there.
So one of the things I think that's going--drive port
partners into playing more with WatchKeeper is the fact--as the
recognition of cyber issues becomes more prevalent through the
agencies, and we've already got a system in place that we've
got the defenses in place. I think that will help bring he port
partners to our standards.
Mr. Caldwell. Ms. Hahn, if I could add something, GAO,
based on a request we got from the Senate Commerce Committee,
is looking at cybersecurity issues within a port. We've been in
touch with Los Angeles and other ports, so we'll be talking to
them about that.
I also wanted to make a linkage between the topic of
today's hearing which is MDA and some of the port security
issues and some of the capability limitations we've talked
about. We may get in a situation, whether it's with robotic
surfboards or satellite or buoys or all kinds of other things
that help us with our MDA that we're aware of a lot of things.
But we don't have the capabilities necessary to do anything
about it.
Again, I learned a lot from this trip to San Diego. You
have the Mexican pangas coming up, running the drugs and
trafficking people. There's an awareness that they're out
there, but part of the problem is when they've got four 200-
horsepower engines on their boat, even if Coast Guard was
pretty close to them, can't catch them unless they had air
assets right there and had authorized use of force. So we could
get in a situation where we're going to maybe know more with
advances in MDA than we can actually address or deal with.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. But--and I agree, and the panga boats
are a real concern to me as well. I mean one of them came
onshore just a couple miles from my house, actually made shore
with about 19 people who came ashore. So yeah, I'm very
concerned about that for a number of reasons, so I just think
it--I still want to know where our gaps are so that at least we
have that information and we could make decisions in Congress
about whether or not we want to address gaps in our port
security.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Hunter. I thank my colleague from California, and we're
almost done here. We have, probably, 5 minutes, Admiral. Our
next panel is, I think, the CEO from Liquid Robotics.
We have Liquid Robotics here. If you could leave somebody
here, that would be great. I mean we don't have to go through
NOAA to figure out what their stuff does. But if you could
leave somebody here, maybe they could just listen in. A couple
of questions. The first, without objection, we want to accept
the testimony from the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union without objection, and here is the basic question I have
here, finishing up.
Right now, you're in a major acquisition. You are in the
middle of major acquisitions for all, for the OPCs, the FRCs,
the National Security Cutters, because you spend hundreds of
millions of dollars, rightly so, this time, trying to
recapitalize the fleet. How do you know what your conduct of
operations are, your ConOps, as you would say.
Admiral Butt. Right.
Mr. Hunter. How do you know what those really are if you
don't know what technology is like unpersoned floating
vehicles, or whatever you want to call them, that will help you
determine how many vessels you would need in order to make sure
places aren't being fished out, to see if there's vessels in
the water in certain areas.
Your conduct of operations will be impacted greatly by the
technology that's out there. So if you don't have the
technology in place yet, and you're going to begin, let's just
say within the next decade, how do you even know how many ships
you need? Because you don't know how you're going to operate or
what you'll need to do it, if you don't really know what
technologies are going to impact that.
So you're kind of working blind on the one side, on the
recapitalization, and we're doing the technology stuff too, but
those things should interact with each other and have major
impacts on how many ships you have to buy and on what kind of
technologies that you use.
Admiral Butt. Well, sir, that assumption would be good if
we didn't have so few vessels to actually do it. If you think
of the interdiction as a three-legged stool, you need cuing,
and that's what we are talking about the technologies for. You
need Maritime Patrol Aircraft actually go in and figure out if
that's a bad boat or not, and then you need the end game to
actually do the interdiction and in effect the purpose. Right
now, the strongest leg of the stool the Coast Guard has is in
my MDA side.
Mr. Hunter. Say that again, Admiral. I am sorry.
Admiral Butt. The three stools are MDA, which is the cuing,
so I know where to send an aircraft or an UAS out to take a
look to see and identify what the target is. And then once I
know the target is something I'm interested in, I need end
game, either a cutter or a boat, depending on where it is at.
If it is a cutter, usually, with an armed helo to be able to
slow it down. So I need those three pieces to actually affect
the interdiction.
So, right now, the problem the Coast Guard is having is I
have more MDA than I have aircraft to send out to identify it
and figure out if it's bad. And I have more aircraft hours than
I have ships available to actually go out and effect the
interdiction. So the longest leg of the stool right now is MDA,
and I have the MDA, not only from our sensors, but through DOD.
The first priority is we need more ships to be able to
effect the interdiction. Then the next driver will be we are
going to need more aircraft or UASs to help with the cuing, and
then we are looking at being able to go to a wider area to
actually get it.
Mr. Hunter. So I understand you are in such dire straits,
you just need ships. It wouldn't matter whether you had censors
or not at this point, because you're not at the level to be
able to pull ships back----
Admiral Butt. Correct.
Mr. Hunter [continuing]. If you didn't need them anymore.
Admiral Butt. Yes, sir. So that's where we're putting our
priority with our budget.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you both for your time, and I have got
one last question that is totally off the subject, but because
you are the capabilities guru, we are going to ask you anyway.
Does the Coast Guard still intend to select three OPC
candidates for full-blown design, or will budget constraints
result in a withdrawal of the current documented requirements
and rescoping of the OPC requirements? Did you get that, or do
you want me to ask it again? Did you understand the question?
Admiral Butt. You're asking if we are going forward with
the program of record or making adjustments. Right now, the
plan is to go forward with the acquisition plan for the OPC.
Mr. Hunter. And you have to get three finalists to the OPC.
Right?
Admiral Butt. That's the current acquisition plan, sir,
yes.
Mr. Hunter. And when is that going to happen?
Admiral Butt. You've got eight in right now, and then
select three.
Mr. Hunter. Right. You have to pick three. When are you
going to select three?
Admiral Butt. I'll get back to you with that one, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Roughly. Give me like this year, next year,
next month, this month, next week?
Admiral Butt. I actually have lost track of it.
Mr. Hunter. OK. Anybody behind you know that?
Admiral Butt. It's scheduled for the end of the fiscal
year, so.
Mr. Hunter. The end of the fiscal year. OK.
Admiral Butt. Was to make the announcement by the end of
the fiscal year.
Mr. Hunter. OK. Great. And thank you both for your time,
and hopefully we can just stay on this and do it right the
first time, and be different from everybody else that's doing
the same thing. Thank you both. Appreciate it.
Admiral Butt. Thank you.
Mr. Hunter. OK. We have a second panel coming up, so please
take your time. We are going to have a lot more people arrive
here, I am sure. I just feel bad when there is nobody here.
[Pause.]
Mr. Hunter. All right. Good morning, gentlemen and lady.
Our second panel of witnesses includes Mr. Bill Vass, CEO of
Liquid Robotics, which we talked about quite a bit here; Mr.
Steve Morrow, president and CEO, Insitu, appearing today on
behalf of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International; Ms. Lisa Hazard, our operations manager of the
Coastal Observing Research and Development Center at Scripps
Institute of Oceanography; and Dr. Newell Garfield, director of
the Romberg Tiburon Center at San Francisco State University.
I would like to welcome you all. You all heard the first
exchange. I understand, Mr. Vass, you have to leave by 1300,
1:00. Right? So please open your statements. Keep them as short
as possible, and we can get around to answering questions.
Thank you for being here. Mr. Vass, you are recognized.
TESTIMONY OF BILL VASS, CEO, LIQUID ROBOTICS; STEVE MORROW,
PRESIDENT AND CEO, INSITU, ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR
UNMANNED VEHICLE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL; LISA HAZARD, OPERATIONS
MANAGER, COASTAL OBSERVING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER,
SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
SAN DIEGO; AND NEWELL GARFIELD, III, PH.D., DIRECTOR, ROMBERG
TIBURON CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, SAN FRANCISCO STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mr. Vass. Again, thank you very much, Chairman Hunter, and
the rest of the distinguished members of the subcommittee for
offering to----
Mr. Hunter. If you don't mind, please pull the mics. I did
three tours with artillery. I can't hear anything, seriously.
Right next to your mouth would be good. Thanks.
Mr. Vass. Liquid Robotics is a venture-backed, Silicon
Valley and Hawaii based company. Since 2007 we have been
providing our customers around the globe with a revolutionary
new way to observe, monitor and patrol the oceans and
coastlines. We are doing this through the utilization of a
platform called, ``The Wave Glider.'' It is an unmanned, or I
guess now we are saying ``unpersoned'' ocean vehicle, capable
of precise navigation that can stay at sea for a year at a time
without the need of fuel, without polluting, without putting
human lives at risk.
By the end of my testimony, I will convey how this
innovative wave and solar-powered platform can help the Coast
Guard, exponentially, increase its patrol area coverage,
increase operational effectiveness at a fraction of the cost
and environmental impact of ships. In 2009 before this
subcommittee, Coast Guard Admiral Salerno said, ``Awareness is
essential to everything the Coast Guard does.'' Matching people
to their spills, tracking ships, all of those kinds of things
are extremely difficult to achieve, unless you have a strong
domain awareness in the ocean. To do this, you need to be at
sea 24/7, 365, through the harshest weather, gathering and
processing data, monitoring marine conditions and traffic, and
communicating this information to key stakeholders.
Historically, maintaining a long duration present at sea
has been cost prohibitive. Sending ships out for long duration
missions of 6 to 12 months can cost millions of dollars, put
human lives at risk and pollute the environment significantly.
Aerial assets have the same time, weather and cost limitations.
With the advent of the wave-glider, the world's first, unmanned
ocean vehicle powered solely by the Earth's national resources,
we have broken through the barrier of long duration operations
by solving the energy problem of having it generate its own
energy while its at sea.
The Wave Glider has stayed at sea for years at a time.
Collectively, our fleet has traveled over 350,000 nautical
miles, navigating the world's oceans on missions for commercial
and Government customers. We have collected scientific data
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, to Australia and all the
world's oceans. We navigated across the Pacific from California
to Australia, giving us the Guinness World Record for the
longest distance ever traveled by an autonomous vehicle on the
surface of the planet, and the first to cross the Pacific
Ocean. With this long duration, all weather technology, we can
help the Coast Guard greatly enhance its maritime domain
awareness and information network, increasing the efficiencies
of high-value assets for the Coast Guard's missions, such as
search and rescue, port, waterways, coastal security, drug
interdiction, border security and EEZ enforcement.
As noted, the beauty of the Wave Glider is that it can
safely and economically travel into high-risk locations through
all weather conditions and capture data that's not before
really feasible. Oh. And I am going to give you some examples.
We are working with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic &
Meteorological Laboratory to measure the ocean surface
temperatures during active hurricanes for better hurricane
intensity prediction; literally, having a better understanding
of how strong the storm is when it lands--not just where it is
going.
As we have seen, preparedness for a tropical storm versus a
category 4 hurricane is dramatically different and it
significantly affects people's lives and the economies. And
many of you on the subcommittee are from coastal towns, like
myself, and you can't measure the tangible and intangible costs
of preparing for a hurricane properly. Until the Wave Glider,
there has not been a viable, safe way to send a mobile surface
vehicle directly into a hurricane to collect real-time data.
Aerial drones can often get blown off-target in these kinds
of situations. Stationary and moored sensors, by definition,
are not mobile and can't move around in a hurricane, and
frequently break in those conditions. Satellites that are
circling 250 miles above the Earth's surface are challenged to
collect data during those kinds of storm events because of the
cloud cover. Imagine implementing the Coast Guard Asset that
can survive a category 4 hurricane, one that can navigate to
new locations to investigate and patrol, all while continuously
communicating and computing lifesaving information.
We can and we have. To date, we have navigated and
communicated through five hurricanes and three cyclones,
including Sandy and Isaac, where we continue to operate in our
oil and gas missions during the storms. Imagine what the Coast
Guard could do with that type of capability. Our customers are
anyone who operate in the ocean or move across it. They vary
from Governments to large oil companies to scientific
organizations and communications companies.
You may wonder what kind of data we actually collect on
these things, and the answer is you can pretty much load any
sensor out there. It is a pretty broad range of things. Think
of the Wave Glider as a utility truck. You can load up a bunch
of sensors on it as well communications and computing
equipment. It's really very much like a floating computer
center out there. So it can collect and process the data. You
can load it up, send it on a mission for 6 to 12 months,
covering tens of thousands of miles and collect your data,
operate patrol. You can collect everything from water quality
measurement, that, as you mentioned, you can collect the
quality of the water down to two parts per trillion of
hydrocarbon, or you can load it up with acoustics, radar, video
and things like that to be used for patrolling.
I think this kind of long duration platform could have a
significant impact on the Coast Guard's operations. So, in
conclusion, around the globe, defense departments, coastal
defense forces, oil and gas companies are faced with this
daunting challenge to continuously protect and secure vast
coverage areas with limited resources and shrinking budgets.
The ability to have a real-time marine information can make the
difference between life and death, the difference between
apprehending the smuggler or not, the difference between
avoiding an environmental disaster or not.
The overwhelming barrier has been providing affordable,
persistent, long duration, multisensing data that can be
monitored, detected, and is very mobile, and track and manage
marine targets and provide marine conditions. As Admiral
Salerno said so eloquently, ``Awareness is essential to
everything the Coast Guard does.'' To have this level of
maritime awareness requires a mobile, unmanned resources, at
the surface of the ocean, collecting data from subsea sensors
and undersea vehicles, collecting surface data and sharing that
information among trusted organizations in real time.
Liquid robotics is in a unique position to provide
increased marine domain awareness today at a fraction of the
cost of the alternatives. We would be honored to help the Coast
Guard increase its maritime advantage. I would like to thank
you for the opportunity to talk to you today and open it up for
questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Vass.
Mr. Morrow, you are recognized for 5 minutes; and, if you
could, keep your testimony at 5, so we can get into the meat of
this when you are finished.
Mr. Morrow. I certainly will.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you.
Mr. Morrow. Thank you, Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member
Garamendi and members of the subcommittee for inviting me to
testify. My name is Steve Morrow and I am the president and
chief executive officer of Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing. Our
company designs, develops and manufactures high-performance,
low-cost, unmanned aircraft systems or UAS.
I am speaking to you today on behalf of the Association of
Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, AUVSI, the world's
largest and oldest nonprofit trade association, representing
the unmanned systems industry. The use of unmanned aircraft
systems has grown substantially in recent history, due largely
to advances in computing technology, but experts all say the
industry is still in its infancy.
UASs hold an enormous potential to increase the reach and
efficiency of current systems while reducing the risk of
operations. I am here, primarily, to address the benefits of
UAS in the maritime domain. UASs have the ability to access and
survey vast expanses of our oceans and rivers to supplement the
capabilities of unmanned vehicles and other platforms. Their
critical, situational awareness that UAS provide could support
search and rescue operations, anti drug or anti smuggling
operations, environmental protection, antipiracy operations and
many other missions. In these missions, UASs are capable of
saving time, saving money, and most importantly saving lives.
One example was described by Vice Admiral Currier in a
hearing before this subcommittee on June 26th, which he
described an evaluation of a small UAS aboard the National
Security Cutter Bertholf. That UAS, which was launched and
recovered on the cutter flew 90 hours at sea providing
substantial awareness beyond the reach of existing systems
available to the cutter. In one mission, the UAS provided real-
time monitoring and location information of a suspicious
vehicle targeting and monitoring the vehicle until other Coast
Guard assets arrived to interdict and apprehend the vessel's
crew.
Seamless transfer between the UAS and manned aircraft
vessels through regular communications resulted in a successful
interdiction of over 1200 pounds of cocaine, the first such UAS
effort by the Coast Guard. And an even more high-profile
example several years prior, the same UAS provided persistence
observation for military units during the rescue operation of
Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, from Somali
pirates in 2009.
In addition to U.S. Government application, commercial
application of the UAS can benefit environmental monitoring and
scientific analysis in regions not accessible by manned
aircraft, or information gathering for commercial enterprises
along coastal regions. As a Federal Aviation Administration
finalizes its regulations of UAS in the national airspace, we
believe that there will be further opportunities for U.S.
Government agencies, in particular the Coast Guard, to work
with commercial UASs in furtherance of its missions. The
information gathered by UAS could be both cost-effective and
timely, allowing all maritime operators the ability to do their
jobs more economically, effectively and efficiently. There
should be no doubt that the future of maritime domain awareness
should include unmanned aircraft.
Mr. Chairman, the UAS industry holds the potential of being
an engine of economic growth for our Nation as well. A study by
AUVSI finds that the unmanned aircraft industry is poised to
create more than 70,000 jobs in the first three years following
integration of UAS into national airspace. By 2025 that number
is estimated to rise to 103,00 new jobs with an economic impact
of more than $82 billion over that period.
I thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and
look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Morrow.
Ms. Hazard, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hazard. Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member Garamendi and
members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today.
I would like to start by taking the opportunity to thank
Congress and Federal agencies for investing in ocean
observations and encouraging a broad distribution of those
data. I was recently made aware that the U.S. Coast Guard is
able to reply on publicly available weather and ocean
information from the Navy, NOAA, and research academic
institutions; whereas, in other countries, a large portion of
the Coast Guard budget goes to payment of environmental data.
Public distribution of data would not be possible without the
support of Congress. So thank you.
Prior to this hearing, I had the opportunity to review the
Government Accountability Office or GAO report on ``Coast Guard
Guidance for the Common Operational Picture,'' or COP. I have
based my recommendations on what I believe to be concerns
addressed within the report. My experiences in working with
operational applications for the U.S. Marine Corps and for
search and rescue and oil spill response, as well as data
management for the integrated ocean observing system, or IOOS,
have shaped many of my views.
Many of my recommendations I discuss are based on my
experience and do not necessarily reflect the position of
Scripps. After reviewing the GAO report, it seems to me there
was significant investment of time, funds and process
documentation, as was required for a full-scale analysis of
developing technologies for the Coast Guard. Conducting smaller
scale demonstrations of developing technologies in partnership
with agencies, such as Naval research, to test conceptive
operations of new technologies could help significantly in
determining worthy ventures.
Depending on the success of the demonstration, results
could provide input to help the Coast Guard define analysis of
risk, operational costs, manning requirements and transition to
the fleet. Successful demonstrations can be scaled to support
operations, while unsuccessful demonstrations provide valuable
lessons learned and saved significantly on what would have been
a full scale guidance procedure.
Additionally, I'd like to touch upon the concept of
building operations for watch standards who need to make
operational decisions based on the information that they have
at hand. The GAO report references a system of systems, which
in my definition includes not only a back end of data feeds,
but also a front-end user interface. It seems as though there's
been some frustration in designing a system that suits all
needs, and such a system can be overly complex to the watch
stander and not supported on existing hardware.
One approach that could prove useful in alleviating these
challenges would be to build a modular applications. These
applications can reuse the back end infrastructure, or building
blocks, if you will, but would have different interactive front
ends or user interfaces. An excellent Coast Guard example of a
mission driven development is the search and rescue optimal
planning system or SAROPS. The design team for SAROPS included
subject matter experts, programmers and users to ensure the
application built was useful, accurate and functional.
Separate but compatible tools could be designed for
tracking submerged oil leaks, monitoring fishing areas or
maintaining vessel awareness. In my own experience with IOOS,
we worked closely with pilots, harbor patrol and emergency
managers on an interactive Web display with overlays of
navigational charts, shipping channels, waves, winds and
surface currents for the Port of L.A.--Long Beach, actually.
The users did not want us to use pop-ups for measurements
as they blocked the underlying models. We did end up putting
data in the text box in the upper left-hand panel of the page,
ensuring they could see the whole picture. We would never have
known that pop-ups would prove to be distracting if we weren't
working with both COP developers and COP users in a build-test-
build development cycle. We've been able to create modular
problem and user driven applications while reusing our common
data feeds in infrastructure. This allows us to be flexible
without redesigning the whole system.
From my final comments, I'll touch base on HF radar, one
emerging technology that is applicable to Coast Guard missions
and maritime domain awareness. High-frequency radar systems are
installed on land and can measure ocean circulations through
receipt of radio signals. A national HF radar network or
HFRNet, supported through NOAA with close to 130 systems, has
been established to measure surface currents in near real-time
and is currently used in multiple operational applications and
distributed for Web services.
I previously mentioned the Coast Guard SAROPS tool. One of
its primary data feeds is a short-term prediction system to
show where a drifting person or vessel would be. The prediction
model receives numerous environmental inputs with the recent
addition of near real-time, HF radar surface currents. HF radar
is also being developed for ship tracking and will extend over-
the-horizon view of vessels, which is directly applicable to
MDA.
Again, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity and happy
to answer any questions.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you very much. Do you actually work at
the Scripps down by La Jolla Shores?
Ms. Hazard. Yes, I do.
Mr. Hunter. That's great. That's a great place to work. I
grew up surfing there at the pier in back.
Ms. Hazard. Pretty nice.
Mr. Hunter. Well, thank you, Ms. Hazard.
Dr. Garfield, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Dr. Garfield. Thank you, Chairman, and Ranking Member
Garamendi for this opportunity to testify.
I am an observational physical oceanographer from San
Francisco State University and a founding member of the Central
and Northern California Ocean Observing System or CeNCOOS, one
of the 11 regional observing systems within the U.S. integrated
ocean observing system.
My testimony actually corroborates very much with Ms.
Hazard's. The ocean is critical for both the prosperity and
safety of our citizens. Knowledge of the ocean environment is
essential to this country. My testimony today is that thanks to
the innovative approach that IOOS is taking, real-time
environmental data are now readily accessible to the Coast
Guard, and the Coast Guard is successfully utilizing these
data.
In 2009 the U.S. IOOS was created by Congress as a Federal,
regional partnership, charged with providing real-time and
sustained observations on our coast, oceans and Great Lakes.
NOAA is the IOOS lead of the 17 Federal agencies including the
U.S. Coast Guard that are working together with local interest
to provide seamless access to coastal data. Today, over 50
percent of the data provided to the global telecommunications
system by NOAA's national data buoy center comes to NOAA from
non-Federal sources, most of which are supported by the
regional associations. In the past, numerical models was one of
the primary ways to estimate circulation. Now with HF radar we
actually have measurements and that greatly improves the
ability to respond and determine trajectories.
My written testimony has three examples that I'll quickly
summarize to illustrate how access to IOOS real-time
observation data has improved the Coast Guard's marine domain
awareness. In 2002, California voters invested $21 million to
install an array of 43 shore-based instruments, the HF radars
that measure the ocean's surface currents in real time from the
shore out of distance 130 kilometers, with a spatial resolution
of 6 kilometers and updated hourly.
The 2005 interagency ``Safe Seas'' spill response exercise
off San Francisco demonstrated the huge benefit of having
access to real-time surface currents, causing one Coast Guard
officer to explain ``I love HF radar,'' and I believe she did
that right in front of Admiral Lautenbacher. The same array was
accessed during the subsequent 2007 Cosco Busan fuel spill, and
this led NOAA to include HF radar data in the NOAA spill
trajectory model used to provide environmental conditions to
the Coast Guard.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident was the first time that
Federal responders had routine access to non-Federal
information, which was enabled by the protocols developed by
the IOOS data management system. In all three incidents, access
to real-time currents improved response operations. And I think
Rear Admiral Butt just said that's continuing to improve in the
Gulf area.
Secondly, it has been shown that when HF radar data are
available, the knowledge of currents can reduce the time of
search and rescue patterns by up to two-thirds from model data
alone, because the search area can be significantly
constrained.
And the third example is the IOOS collaboration with the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Data Information Program,
CDIP, to deploy buoys that accurately measure both waves and
swell at critical locations. In the San Francisco area, the
National Weather Service, the Coast Guard and the commercial
tugboat operators requested that one of these buoys be placed
on the San Francisco bar entrance. The number of Coast Guard
responses in that area dropped from nearly 80 in 2005 before
the buoy was deployed to less than 20 in 2009. A similar buoy
at the Columbia River bar is monitored 24/7 by the Coast Guard
to determine when conditions are too rough for safe passage
through the bar.
It is important to emphasize that the data are obtained
from many different sources instead of being restricted to a
particular vendor or agency. It is also important to understand
that these data are all available in open formats. No
proprietary formats are involved. This will allow the SAROPS
environmental data server to host over 50 different
environmental products, and the IOOS structure allows many
different users access to the data.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that the
development of the IOOS system gives the Coast Guard
unprecedented access to real-time environmental data. The Coast
Guard, particularly SAROPS group and the unified area command
group are commended for ensuring that agency has access to the
environmental data essential for good maritime domain
awareness.
The distributed observing infrastructure being developed by
IOOS is as critical to the Coast Guard's functions as are its
boats, aircrafts, piers and other infrastructure. This asset is
needed by the Coast Guard and it needs Coast Guard support. I
recommend that the Coast Guard commit to supporting IOOS and
strive to utilize all nonclassified, environmental data
available through the IOOS servers and ensure that the
different divisions within the Coast Guard utilized common
protocols to access the data.
I also urge the divisions of the Coast Guard to become
members of their respective regional associations. Membership
strengthens the collaboration between the organizations and
provides a more effective mechanism to create operational
applications in support of the Coast Guard mission. In fact,
last year, CeNCOOS had their annual meeting at Liquid Robotics,
and so right there we had that integration of different
resources. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Dr. Garfield. Thank you panel for
being here.
I have got a quick question, really quick about the HF. Is
that like synthetic aperture radar, or is it totally different?
Dr. Garfield. Totally different.
Mr. Hunter. Totally different. How far does it go off
shore?
Dr. Garfield. It depends on the frequency. The lowest
frequency we use has a range of 130 kilometers offshore.
Mr. Hunter. And how big is it? It's an antenna, I would
guess.
Dr. Garfield. It's just an antenna, that's a vertical
antenna, and basically invisible.
Mr. Hunter. Is it big?
Dr. Garfield. No, it's a whip antenna.
Mr. Hunter. So you could put it on a surfboard and float
it?
Dr. Garfield. You could.
Mr. Hunter. Can it move? Like can you move it, or does it
have to stay still?
Dr. Garfield. You could. In fact, the Navy has done tests
about putting HF radar on ships. The problem is that the
technology relies on the Doppler shift that's being reflected
off ocean waves. So if you're also on a moving vehicle, it's a
lot more difficult.
Mr. Hunter. You have to account for your movement as well
as the ocean.
Dr. Garfield. Correct.
Mr. Hunter. And the reason you use HF, that's what we use
when we're talking to airplanes. Because as long as there is
nothing blocking your line of sight, it can go forever for the
most part. I mean we use HF to talk to planes. We use VH to
talk to ground.
Dr. Garfield. Yeah. HF is down near FM radio frequencies,
and there was a gap there where we could do some scientific
work.
Mr. Hunter. Gotcha. Dr. Hazard--Ms. Hazard--so what you
would do is if a ship wasn't pinging, you could, basically,
like we do with space, see where the holes are. So you could
see what's out there, and you know if the ship is pinging. And
if there's nothing pinging, but you see it on the radar, that's
when you know that you have somebody who's not pinging from
their ship, right, from the AIS or whatever system they are
using.
Ms. Hazard. But, sir, it's not actually using the AIS feed,
but the radar----
Mr. Hunter. What I'm saying is the Coast Guard, using the
AIS and using the HF at the same time can see that there's no
pinging from the AIS from a ship that exists that they see from
your HF radar. Right?
Ms. Hazard. That's correct.
Dr. Garfield. One clarification: It's not really radar. It
is radio waves, and so the technology is not like a ship's X
band radar at all. If you're familiar with radars, most people
tune their radar not to see the ocean waves. What we're trying
to do is capture the scatter off the ocean waves, and that's
how you determine what the currents are. But a ship will give a
solid signal. It will give a very strong return signal, but you
won't know its location immediately.
Mr. Hunter. Let me ask you this, too. What's the order of
magnitude of difficulty? And this is for everybody, actually.
What's the order of magnitude of more difficulty? Is it to do
this stuff on the water as opposed to land? Like we were
talking about unmanned systems. I would guess the Coast Guard
would just hopefully piggy-back with the Navy. It's way ahead
on this stuff. And, once the Navy gets it down, because it's
harder that they would just take what the Navy has, right.
And on the other side of it, you can't communicate under
water with underwater systems. It's really hard, because to
make waves travel through water, almost every single underwater
platform is tethered to something so you can tell it what to
do, or at least tell it and then let it go again, and then tell
it later, once it surfaces, if you can communicate again.
Right? So my question is this. How much harder is it. Why is it
so much harder?
I think I just went through a few of those, and if you were
to have your way and create a CON OPS for the Coast Guard, say
here's how you use our stuff, I mean we're talking about the
Coast Guard right now, and that previous panel said that they
don't even know. They wouldn't know how to use it because it's
not in their dictionary yet. It's called floating debris.
That's your Government answer, right, because they
literally call it floating debris; therefore, we don't even
want to look at what it does or how to use it until we can see
it written on paper with a colon and a description of it.
Right? So they are probably 20 years back. My question is if
you were to tell us how to employ what you are doing and bring
it all together to make it more effective and efficient, and
save money for the Coast Guard, kind of what would that be.
What do you envision? Mr. Vass, please?
Mr. Vass. Well, I would envision an integrated system.
Mr. Hunter. Turn your microphone on, if you could. Is it
on?
Mr. Vass. I believe it's on. The green light's on, anyway.
Mr. Hunter. OK. That's great.
Mr. Vass. All right. I would envision an integrated system.
We communicate to undersea vehicles all the time now with our
Wave Glider, and then transmit that to satellite or to radar.
We do that acoustically. Sound travels 10 times faster under
water than it does through land, so we can communicate things
down 6 kilometers down under the ocean pretty effectively,
along with giving it positional information.
So what you really want is something like what we did in
the harmony demo with Lockheed Martin where you have undersea
vehicles communicating to these long duration surface vehicles,
communicating to aerial vehicles, communicating to space
assets. So you basically have ISR from the ocean floor to space
in these environments, all autonomous sort of end to end. So
the advantage of the Wave Gliders, we can stay out all year,
and not many things can do that. We can navigate very
accurately.
We are unpredictable as far as patrolling goes, because you
can move us around and navigate, and control that both
autonomously or semi autonomously from sure. And then we can
receive signals from undersea assets, tip and cue aerial assets
or aerial assets can tip and cue us, or the same thing with
spatial assets. So you sort of get this continuous ISR at a
much lower cost and much longer duration.
So, for example, aerial drones are going to stay up a
series of hours, perhaps a series of days. We are out there all
year. We can direct them. When we detect something, they can
confirm an asset before an interdiction goes out. I mean it's
very expensive to do an interdiction, so you'd save those high-
value assets for interdiction; use the lower cost assets--like
aerial drones and undersea drones and surface drones--for your
monitoring a long duration monitoring.
I thought Mr. Morrow gave a great example of we could show
where something was. Aerial drone comes over. It tracks it
continuously, and then air assets and sea assets can interdict.
Mr. Hunter. Like the admiral said, Admiral Butt said, that
you have to cue. Cuing is a main part of maritime domain
awareness, right?
Mr. Vass. Right.
Mr. Hunter. So cuing, you can get people there quickly.
Mr. Vass. Right.
Mr. Hunter. It's a big part of knowing what's going on.
Mr. Vass. Right. And part of our design criteria for the
Wave Glider; it's actually a high-performance computing center.
We have many cores of onboard processing. I know you have an IT
background, so you understand some of that. It is a 24-socket,
multicore processing system on board running Linux and Java, so
we can run a lot of the cuing and tipping algorithms on board,
along with sensor fusion and data reduction in situ when we
collect the data. And that allows us to be this sort of long
duration platform, so we can collect huge amounts of data. You
don't really want to send home--you know--365 days of waves in
the ocean. You want to process the data onboard, and send home
when you see a ship, or when you see a whale or you see things
that are interesting, and we have the ability to do that with
our platform.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Vass.
Mr. Morrow. To speak more generally to the admiral's
dilemma of writing requirements for this new technology, our
lessons learned from Afghanistan and Iraq was that until the
war fighter actually got his hands on the system, he didn't
really know how to use it. He had a notional idea how he would
use it, but that radically changed. When we first got to
Fallujah, again, they had a general idea. A couple months of
using the system, they found it used in a totally different
way, and that's what's involved----
Mr. Hunter. You know. I was one of the first forward
observers to shoot artillery off of an unmanned system with a
corporal with a laptop on his back in Fallujah in 2004. Yeah.
That hadn't been done a whole lot yet at that point.
Mr. Morrow. Correct.
Mr. Vass. Did you hit the targets?
Mr. Hunter. We did hit the targets, a lot of them. Yeah.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Vass. Just checking.
Mr. Hunter. It was fulfilling.
Mr. Morrow. So until the Coast Guard actually gets the
systems deployed, I think they won't have a full appreciation
of what they can do with them.
Mr. Hunter. Well, that's not good that they won't know how
to integrate them into their operations until they have them in
their hands?
Mr. Morrow. Right. From an acquisition standpoint, it is a
dilemma. It's an issue.
Mr. Vass. Yeah. And I think the platforms don't evolve
properly until they have them in operation, as well. So until
you've been using them and you get feedback from the end user
who's relying on it every day and what needs to be changed,
what the performance characteristics are, what kind of data is
most useful, all of that requires piloting and demonstrations,
and test processes, which of course we're doing right now with
the Navy.
Mr. Morrow. Right. Our technology refresh rate is occurring
well inside the do-loop of the acquisition procurement cycle.
Mr. Hunter. Ms. Hazard?
Ms. Hazard. I'll just make two points in addition to what's
been said. The HF radar technology is nice, because it is land-
based and fixed. And so not out in the water where systems can
require significantly more maintenance. So the maintenance of
the system is easier. The Coast Guard needs all those
applications together. And, also, just in regards to the Coast
Guard, where there is a lot of the turnover. Someone becomes
familiar with the technology, and then you get an expert user.
And then they're gone a year later. Scripps staff retain the
technology expertise and can train users.
For example, we have been working with special warfare,
showing them how to use the unpersoned autonomous vehicles and
then maintaining that technical expertise and continuing to
work with them as that turnover continues. So we maintain the
knowledge base and can get folks up to speed very rapidly so
that they are ready to go at the start of their service.
Mr. Hunter. And I would guess too if you're doing port
security you don't need more than 130 kilometers offshore.
That's well within what you would need. How many miles is that?
Dr. Garfield. It's a little over 100 miles. It's about 100
miles, nautical miles.
Mr. Hunter. Nautical miles. And so that's well outside of a
nuclear yield or something like that, and dipping in the wind
and stuff like that.
Mr. Vass. I think one thing that's important to point out,
in the commercial world where we operate, we generally operate
these as a service, and in some cases for the Department of
Defense we do as well. And I think that's one way to stay in
situ, if you like the do-loop of procurement, is just say we
want this much information and we want this level of
availability and make it our problem in commercial industry,
solve that problem. I know Insitu does the same thing. They
operate it as a service.
Mr. Hunter. You don't think that the Coast Guard should try
to make this on their own?
Mr. Vass. No. I believe even operating it it would make
sense they would put mission requirements in place and say
``Here is the data we need.'' Here is the availability we
need--those kinds of things--and then let commercial enterprise
do the day-to-day operations and operate it as a service for
them.
Mr. Hunter. Dr. Garfield?
Dr. Garfield. Yeah. Chairman Hunter, I would just add one
thing. I think the three other speakers covered it very well,
but as I mentioned in my closing remarks, the IOOS regional
associations are really a valuable asset for the Coast Guard to
take advantage of; and, if the different divisions were in the
Coast Guard, actually partnered and joined in on these meetings
and participated, they would know exactly what Liquid Robotics
could do. They would know exactly what the assets are in their
area.
The other is I have been able to go into the Coast Guard
Search and Rescue there on Yerba Buena Island. I have a much
better idea of what their needs and what their capabilities
are, which has helped us sort of tune some of the data, some of
the information, to make it more beneficial to their needs. So
that give and take, outside of some purchasing requirement,
would really help define their mission and show them what is
available to be successful in their mission.
Mr. Vass. Right. I think it's interesting to point out we
work very closely with the Coast Guard as a user of Coast Guard
services, because we file a Notice to Mariners in all our
operations. The Coast Guard has given us input on how we should
flag the vehicle; what kind of AIS we should transmit; what
kind of marine radio we should use, and what kind of lighting
we should use what are the COP regs, all those kinds of things.
They've been tremendously helpful and very active as a service
provider to us. And I just want to make sure that's noticed.
So the folks on the ground are very familiar with the Wave
Glider, because we are operating in all their areas all the
time, and they are always taking this into account. They're
just not a user of our service. So it's interesting from that
aspect for us, but they've been tremendously supportive. And I
think that's important to point out. They really do tremendous
work for us in ensuring how we operate and where we operate,
and that we do it with maximum safety and maximum capability as
well.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you. Mr. Garamendi, you're recognized for
as long as you like.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this
very, very important hearing. Mr. Garfield, it's good to be
working with you once again. I notice when I was reading
through the testimony and looking at what you had done since I
left the Lieutenant Governor's office, you've come a long way.
Most of the things I really wanted to get into have been
covered, which is a description of what you're doing; but, we
don't have.
And I'm sorry the admiral left, because I thought he'd be
sticking around and we could put him back up here and ask him
some questions. Apparently, your floating devices, Mr. Vass,
are not sea debris.
Mr. Vass. No. They are not. They're a very controlled
navigation devices that communicate and make their own
decision.
Mr. Garamendi. Apparently, from your last comments, the
Coast Guard recognizes there's something more than debris.
Mr. Vass. They do, but they don't have a legal definition.
So they really have. That is a challenge for us.
Mr. Garamendi. The Chairman came up with a definition,
``unpersoned floating vessel.''
Mr. Vass. Unpersoned floating vessel, yeah. We usually
refer to it as an unmanned surface vehicle. But, now----
Mr. Garamendi. It's very sexist?
Mr. Vass [continuing]. Yeah, very sexist. So I guess it
will be unpersoned surface vehicle from now on.
Mr. Garamendi. I think where I'd like to take this is to
where you're talking about the integration of your technologies
into the Coast Guard's operations.
Mr. Vass. Yeah.
Mr. Garamendi. The Chairman correctly pointed out that the
Coast Guard really isn't well-suited to develop the technology,
but rather to use it and adapt it. And I think what I'd like,
to make a statement or statements, and then have some response.
It seems to me we ought to encourage the Coast Guard to work
with your systems, and you have four or five different systems
here, to acquire the knowledge to determine how best to use the
systems that you have to inform their normal work.
Mr. Vass. Yes.
Mr. Garamendi. This also involves the Navy. And I just
stepped out during the early parts of your testimony to take to
the Air Force about their ISRS, some of which are applicable
here. So I think what I'd like to do is how would you, if the
Coast Guard was still here, if Admiral Butt was still here, I'd
ask how would you integrate. How would you capture the
information? How would you see the Coast Guard doing that?
Let's start this way. We'll go left to right, or right to left.
Mr. Vass, if you would?
Mr. Vass. As I mentioned before, I would look at an
integrated platform from undersea assets, surface assets,
aerial assets and satellite assets. The nice thing about our
platform is it patrols like a vessel patrols. So someone trying
to interdict your coastline.
Mr. Garamendi. Excuse me. I'm more interested in the
organization. How would you want them to work with you? How
would you want the Coast Guard to work with you?
Mr. Vass. So, for us, specifically, would be to basically
hire us as a service to provide information to them where
they're most interested and where they have the most critical
information to gather, and define for us what information needs
to be gathered on a 24 by 7 basis. Tell us what format they
want that information that will be most valuable to them, and
then interact with us to help us improve the information we
provided them and make our platform better to meet their needs.
Mr. Morrow. I would second the services approach, however,
I'd also add that in their system of systems architecture, I
found it always works best if you define the interface
standards as close to commercially viable standards as
possible. That way I'm motivated. I can hire people that know
those interfaces to remain compatible with their overall
systems architecture.
Mr. Garamendi. So put aside the not invented here syndrome
and go with already is invented.
Mr. Morrow. Hm-hmm. Correct, yes.
Mr. Garamendi. But you cover a variety of systems, your
organization or association does. Has the Coast Guard worked
with your association in developing knowledge about the various
types of systems that are out there?
Mr. Morrow. I don't know that they have. I'm sure they've
talked. They are investigating small UASs as we speak. We've
done one demo with them, and we'll do another first quarter of
next year. So they are beginning that communication process.
Mr. Garamendi. Ms. Hazard, as you pointed out very
specifically how they could, if you'd like to go back and
expand on that I'd be happy to hear it.
Ms. Hazard. Sure. I made two points. I guess one using
small scale demonstrations to the scale up to opportunities
that can provide the analysis, costs and many requirements for
doing these types of demonstrations. But on the data side for
integration, within academia there is a whole host of folks
working on common data formats and inoperability. And so I
guess for the Coast Guard my recommendation would be to use the
open geospatial consortium, which is a global group working on
data standards.
We are using network common data formats that can integrate
easily within Google maps, open layers. A lot of the open
source architecture, and even for a lot of the time series
data, asking time series and just the basic file structure
hierarchy works really well for designing and integrating
these, and we do that within our lab on multiple meteorological
sensors, autonomous vehicles, HF radar, and so I can understand
the conflict of having classified and unclassified systems.
So my recommendation, again, would be using the modular
approach and only using those data fees that are required for
your mission so that you're not cluttering your work space for
these large standards and they're getting the information that
is needed. And a lot of the open architecture can down-size
those data feeds, because when you're integrating large,
satellite images and everything, they can be massive and that
can bog down a system, because you're transmitting gigabytes
into your application. But, newer standards are able to
disseminate that data, and so that the viewer is only looking
at--your system is only bringing in a small portion of that
data for your operating picture. And, so, my recommendation
would be to use those open architecture standards and Web
services. And then for the classified systems, they might have
the entire picture. But, for the mission-driven systems, to
keep it in the unclassed level, just building modular
applications.
Mr. Garamendi. Garfield?
Dr. Garfield. So you let the education professor in me come
to the forefront. What's really worked for us was actually
getting into the Coast Guard and talking to people. I mean
these are very busy people. They don't have much time. What we
did is we actually went to them, said, look. We're going to
give you presentations. We're going to give you workshops.
The lieutenant commander who is in charge of search and
rescue in San Francisco, she had my phone number. And so when
there was an incident and they had questions, she knew who to
contact. She could get information from us, directly. And I
really think that through the IOOS mechanism and the regional
associations, building those partnerships is really the
critical way to go forward with this.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Chairman, it is not clear to me how the
Coast Guard is learning and using, and certainly integrating
these technologies. There's some indication that they do some.
From the earlier testimony today, it appears to be so they are
thinking about building massive systems of their own, rather
than using what might already be available.
I'm not exactly sure how to proceed here until we have a
conversation with the Coast Guard about how they are accessing
systems that can be useful to them in gathering and achieving
their goal on understanding the marine environment. Perhaps we
ought to ask them that kind of question in detail. And if the
answer comes back--because I think it might--that it's sort of
but not much, we may want to develop some sort of a round table
system or force them to develop it. And sit down with the
various kinds of systems and technologies that are available
and learn, rather than trying to invent it themselves and
develop it themselves, which proves to be difficult and not
very successful.
Mr. Hunter. Absolutely. In fact, what we'll do, we'd like
to follow this up with another hearing or a round table when
the Coast Guard stays, and you're here at the same time. And
the Coast Guard captain back there listen to us, but it would
be great if we could have some interaction and be able to ask
them, hey, are you using this right now, and exactly how do you
want to use it to them. And I don't think they are prepared
right now to answer that question.
I also don't think they are prepared to talk about how it
would change their recapitalization efforts; change what type
of ships they need to build; how many of those ships they need
to build; where they're going to operate those ships; what
their conduct of operations. All of that gets impacted as you
bring technology into the game, and it is going to put pressure
on different sides of their systems. And you're going to have
things change. And I think we need to figure out what that is.
This is not a full hearing. A lot of people did not come,
but don't let that take away from how important this is and
what your testimony will be used for going forward. Because
John is here and I'm here. We had Mr. Meehan and Ms. Hahn, and
we are going to take this and make sure that they make the
right decisions using what's available to us right now. We are
going to make sure of it, because if we don't get involved and
conduct the oversight, then bad things happen, as we've
learned.
So I'd like to thank everybody for being here and with
that, if Mr. Garamendi has no more questions, the hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]