[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FUTURE OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY MISSIONS OF THE COAST GUARD
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER
AND MARITIME SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 4, 2014
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Serial No. 113-49
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Vice Brian Higgins, New York
Chair Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Ron Barber, Arizona
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Dondald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Jason Chaffetz, Utah Beto O'Rourke, Texas
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
Richard Hudson, North Carolina Steven A. Horsford, Nevada
Steve Daines, Montana Eric Swalwell, California
Susan W. Brooks, Indiana
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania
Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Vacancy
Vacancy, Staff Director
Michael Geffroy, Deputy Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER AND MARITIME SECURITY
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Chairwoman
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Loretta Sanchez, California
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Beto O'Rourke, Texas
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii
Vacancy Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (Ex (Ex Officio)
Officio)
Paul L. Anstine, II, Subcommittee Staff Director
Deborah Jordan, Subcommittee Clerk
Alison Northrop, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Candice S. Miller, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Michigan, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security................................... 1
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security................................... 3
Witness
Admiral Robert J. Papp, Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Appendix
Questions From Honorable Steven M. Palazzo for Robert J. Papp.... 27
FUTURE OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY MISSIONS OF THE COAST GUARD
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Tuesday, February 4, 2014
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Candice S. Miller
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Palazzo, Jackson Lee,
Sanchez, O'Rourke, and Gabbard.
Mrs. Miller. Good morning. The Committee on Homeland
Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security will
come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to examine the future of
the Coast Guard's Homeland Security missions, and our witness
today is Admiral Robert Papp, who is the Commandant of the
United States Coast Guard. We certainly welcome him.
I am going to recognize myself for an opening statement and
then I will give a more formal introduction of Admiral Papp.
Being a life-long recreational boater, I have certainly a
deep affinity for the Coast Guard and for the incredible work
that they do each and every day, whether it is out on the
oceans or in the Great Lakes, whether it is routine boating
safety missions, search and rescue, or certainly keeping vital
shipping lanes clear of ice in the winter and then helping
commerce to flow through all of our channels. I often say that
if it is cold and wet and impossible, you should send in the
Coast Guard. So we are very appreciative, certainly, of the
work that the Coast Guard does in service to our great Nation.
Since 9/11, the Coast Guard has taken an ever-increasing
role in the protection of our Nation. We have given the Coast
Guard additional responsibilities. We have tasked them to
specifically focus their limited resources on port and maritime
security. This often calls for some difficult choices, and in
this time of very restrained budgets, we have to prioritize the
Coast Guard's core missions, because the Coast Guard cannot be
everywhere at once.
When the Commandant was before this subcommittee in the
last Congress, he stressed the importance of recapitalizing our
aging cutter fleet, specifically how important the acquisition
of the National Security Cutter was and is. Congress responded,
we worked together, and it is on track now to fully fund all
eight of the required cutters, which I think certainly is vital
to the homeland security missions of the Coast Guard.
Again, the Commandant was a very vocal advocate for that,
and I am glad that Congress listened to the men and women of
the Coast Guard about that issue. However, as we all know,
recapitalization of the fleet is long-term, it is a costly
process, and in a time again of budget constraints, we have to
balance the cost to acquire these advanced cutters against
long-term capability needs.
I certainly support the Coast Guard's plan to develop the
Offshore Patrol Cutter, or the OPC as it is called, because our
older cutters are costing us far too much in terms of less
mission readiness, lost operational hours, and higher
maintenance costs. Just consider for a moment that major Coast
Guard law enforcement cutters have an average age of more than
40 years, while at the same time our naval ships have an
average age of only 14. Quite a discrepancy there.
We in the Congress need to ensure that the Coast Guard,
again, has the proper assets to safely and effectively carry
out its operations. This committee is especially interested in
hearing the Commandant's thoughts on the trade-offs required to
ensure that the Coast Guard has the capabilities required to
secure the maritime borders, to combat terrorism, to interdict
drugs, and to perform its other statutory missions.
During the 113th Congress, this subcommittee held a series
of hearings on what a secure border looks like. As we increase
our efforts along the border, other threats have emerged, such
as the growing threat from panga boats off the coast of
California.
No border security efforts can be complete without a
serious examination of our maritime security, and how we
measure success there as well, and it will take an ``all of the
Department of Homeland Security'' approach to securing our
borders--Northern, Southern, and our maritime borders.
Thankfully, the Coast Guard is adept at partnering with and
leveraging other Department of Homeland Security components in
the critical maritime domain. Centers like the Operational
Integration Center in Detroit continue to be a good model for
cooperation amongst the various Federal partners, State and
local stakeholders, in addition to our Canadian friends. We
certainly welcome and appreciate the contributions made by the
Coast Guard to this collaboration as well as their leadership
role in the Regional Coordinating Mechanism, or RCM, as it is
called.
Sharing information helps secure the border, minimizes the
duplication of efforts between agencies with overlapping
jurisdictions, and keeps the maritime domain open for commerce
and recreational boaters. One of the more interesting and
valuable programs that leverages our partnerships is the
Shiprider program, which we have talked about on this committee
many times. We have very closely followed the progress of this
integrated law enforcement program since it was first piloted
in 2006. We were very pleased to see that the permanent
authorization of the Shiprider program, that I actually
authored and this committee passed, was included in the 2012
Coast Guard Authorization Act.
As you know, this committee has a long history of strongly
supporting the specialized maritime security teams that deploy
to provide security and protection in a maritime environment
and specialize in counterterrorism tactics and is designed as a
first responder to marine terrorist situations.
We are very interested on getting the Commandant's
perspective on the future of these programs and what advice he
might give to the new Commandant when it comes to Homeland
Security missions of the Coast Guard.
So, again, I want to thank the Commandant for appearing
before us today. We certainly appreciate your presence here,
sir. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on how the
Congress can work with the Coast Guard to better assist all of
the challenges that you have to secure our Nation's ports and
maritime borders.
At this time the Chairwoman now recognizes the Ranking
Minority Member of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from Texas,
Ms. Jackson Lee, for her statement.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chairwoman and thank our
witness, Commandant Papp, for his leadership and the leadership
that has been given by the United States Coast Guard.
I am prone to the work that the Coast Guard has done over
the years, and as a beginning and early member of the Homeland
Security Committee, I felt that the Coast Guard was a strategic
element of the war on terrorism and the prevention of any
further attacks on the homeland, and I continue to emphasize
both the civilian and military role that the Coast Guard plays,
plays in commerce, but it also plays in the security of the
Nation's citizens. For that, I am eternally grateful and agree
that the funding necessary for the Coast Guard to carry out its
responsibilities should be an important responsibility.
I, too, am glad of the funding of the offshore patrol
cutters and realize that even though they may have a life of 40
years-plus, it is not the best to continue to utilize equipment
that does not have the state-of-the-art technology, although
the Coast Guard has been enormously effective in its efforts
with the equipment that it has, and I believe that we should
continue to seek full funding for the resources of the
personnel of the Coast Guard and of the equipment.
Admiral, let me make note of Polar Star, I believe one of
our major assets of the Coast Guard, and know that if you had
reached the Australian research ship, as you had been requested
to do, and you were on your way to do so before mother nature
took hold, all would have been well. So let me thank those who
manned that and thank the Coast Guard for being ever-ready in
its service.
As Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Border and
Maritime Security and a Member of Congress representing the
Port of Houston, again, as I indicate, I am well aware of the
value of the Coast Guard to our communities and Nation. In my
own backyard, the Coast Guard works to secure the Port of
Houston, among other ports, which is imperative as it is the
Nation's largest petrochemical complex, supplying over 40
percent of our petrochemical manufacturing capacity.
The Coast Guard also works to facilitate commerce, which is
vital to our economy, as the Port of Houston handles nearly 230
million tons of cargo annually, making it the No. 1 U.S. port
in foreign water-borne tonnage and generating over 650,000 jobs
at its terminals. Without the Coast Guard, this would simply
not be possible. Of course, these examples are just one small
part of the service by U.S. Coast Guard men and women across 11
statutory missions both here at home and around the world.
Given this committee's jurisdiction, the focus of today's
hearing is the Coast Guard's Homeland Security missions,
including ports, waterways and coastal security, drug
interdiction, migrant interdiction, defense readiness, and law
enforcement. I am pleased to have the Commandant of the Coast
Guard, Admiral Robert Papp, here to discuss the future of these
Homeland Security missions.
Personally, Commandant Papp, I want to thank you for 40
years-plus probably of service and your true commitment to
America's goals, visions, security, and your service to your
Nation. I know that the men and women of the Coast Guard have
benefited from your long years of service, and it is my
privilege to simply say thank you.
Indeed, this is a particularly appropriate time for him to
be before the committee as he completes his 4 years of service
as Commandant in May. It is also a critical time for the Coast
Guard, as budget cuts and recapitalization challenges force the
Coast Guard to make some tough choices. The Coast Guard has
been forced to cut back its hours on water and in the air,
contributing to a reduction in mission performance. This is a
troubling trend that must be reversed. The Coast Guard already
provides the American taxpayers with an excellent return on our
investment, and there is only so long we can ask them to
continue to do more with less.
Frankly, I believe that we should have a goal, as the
Chairwoman has worked unceasingly on issues dealing with
assets, that we should have a commitment of full funding of the
Coast Guard. I am reminded of my own visuals watching the Coast
Guard race up and down the Pacific and in the Caribbean area to
track and find drug dealers who have taken to the waterways,
and taken to the waterways in very large numbers. Other means
of attacks on the United States are able to approach us through
the waterways, and the Coast Guard is one of our first lines of
defense.
So I am here to hear from the Commandant and to thank him
as well, and to commit to working to prepare the Coast Guard
for its 21st Century multi-missions that it has. Again, I don't
think I miss a time when a Coast Guard is before me to say
again, among all the things you have done, and you have done
many things, I am very much reminded of the work you did in
Hurricane Katrina in saving the lives of those stranded in the
terrible aftermath of the hurricane and the breaking of the dam
that faced the citizens of New Orleans, many of whom now live
in Houston, Texas.
Madam Chairwoman, I do want to acknowledge present
Congressman Beto O'Rourke and Captain Gabbard, Congresswoman
from Hawaii. Commandant, she is with the Hawaiian Army National
Guard, Military Police, and she did two deployments in Iraq,
but I take note of her because she was on her 2 weeks of
military police training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. So we
missed her for a while at this committee, and we welcome her
back, having done her requirements to serve the Nation in more
ways than here in the United States Congress. So let me thank
all of you.
With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentlelady very much for her
comments, and I certainly join with her in recognizing our
colleague from Hawaii to be here and for her service to the
country, as you say, in many, many ways. We appreciate that.
I also want to join in and again thank the Commandant for
his many, many years of service to the Coast Guard and to our
Nation. I know your term as Commandant is coming to an end; is
it the end of May or beginning of June?
Admiral Papp. May 30.
Mrs. Miller. Yeah. May 30. We certainly are going to miss
him on this committee and miss your advocacy for the men and
women of the Coast Guard. You certainly have done the service,
your uniform, and the country very, very proud.
Admiral Robert Papp began his service as Commandant of the
United States Coast Guard in May 2010. The Admiral has served
in numerous capacities within the Coast Guard, including the
commander of the Coast Guard Atlantic area as well as the
commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District, a district that
includes the Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes and the
Northern Borders. His full statement will appear in the record.
I would also remind the other Members of the committee that
if they have any opening statements, we can include those in
the record as well.
At this time the Chairwoman now recognizes the Commandant
for 5 minutes; actually for as long as you may consume. Please
take your time.
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL ROBERT J. PAPP, COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST
GUARD, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Admiral Papp. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Thank you also, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and to the
distinguished Members of the panel. Thank you for having me
here today.
It has just been an honor to serve in this service that I
love so much for nearly 4 decades, but it is an even greater
honor to come up here each time to talk about the men and women
of the Coast Guard and to try to provide for the resources that
they need to get their jobs done, and I am particularly mindful
of those men and women today.
I have attended three memorial services this past week as
the keynote speaker. Each one of them drove home to me once
again the dangerous work that we do and the selfless dedication
of the people who do it.
Now, the first two were in Florida and they go back a ways,
but we continue to remember our shipmates of the Coast Guard
Cutter Blackthorn, which sank 34 years ago in Tampa Bay with
the loss of 23 Coast Guardsmen. The third service was out in
California, and it was a memorial service for Boatswain's Mate
Third Class, Travis Obendorf of the National Security Cutter
Waesche. He was mortally wounded during a rescue operation in
the Bering Sea, and then just around Christmastime, he
succumbed to his injuries.
Both these events were fresh reminders to me that
downstream from every decision, every hearing, every piece of
policy that we produce here in Washington, it is young men and
women who carry those things out, often when they are cold,
wet, and tired, and who stand the watch to keep our homeland
safe.
So I am here today to discuss the Coast Guard's homeland
security missions, but before I begin, I would like to thank
the Members of the subcommittee for their support in passing
the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. This act will
really help to relieve the erosive efforts of sequestration on
our service. It will also restore front-line operations and
badly-needed training hours for my people and ease many of the
personnel management restrictions that we had to face over the
past year.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our new
Secretary. Secretary Jeh Johnson has been a tremendously
enthusiastic supporter of the Coast Guard in his short time in
the Department. I deeply appreciate his concern for our people
and also his strong advocacy for our service's critical
recapitalization needs.
America is a maritime Nation, we all understand that, and
we rely upon the safe, secure, and free flow of goods across
the seas into our ports and waterways. I have always firmly
believed as a Coast Guardsman that one measure of our Nation's
greatness is its ability to provide safe and secure approaches
to our ports. This system of uninterrupted trade is the
lifeblood of our economy. For more than 2 centuries, the Coast
Guard has safeguarded America's maritime interests and kept
those approaches secure.
As the Nation's maritime first responder, we protect those
on the sea, we protect the Nation from threats delivered by the
sea, and we also protect the sea itself. Every day the Coast
Guard acts to both prevent and respond to an array of threats
that if left unchecked would impede trade, weaken our economy,
and create instability. These threats disrupt regional and
global security, the economies of our partner nations, and
access to both resources and international trade. All of these
are vital elements of our National prosperity, which of course
plays into our National security.
In previous testimony, I have used the term ``layered
security'' to describe the way the Coast Guard counters
maritime threats facing the United States. This layered
security strategy first begins in foreign ports, then it spans
the high seas, because the best place to counter a threat is
before it reaches our borders.
It then encompasses our exclusive economic zone in
territorial seas, which is the largest exclusive economic zone
in the world at 4.5 million square miles, the largest of any
country, and then it continues into our ports and our inland
waters.
Now, starting overseas, our international port security
program assesses foreign ports on security and anti-terrorism
measures. Since the inception of the program in 2004, Coast
Guard personnel have visited more than 150 countries and 1,300
port facilities. Vessels sailing from ports where effective
counterterrorism measures are not in place force conditions of
entry prior to entering our ports or we subject them to
additional security measures and inspections before they arrive
in our ports.
Our Nation faces a range of risks and vulnerabilities that
continue to grow and evolve. The global economy is spurring
investment in even larger vessels to ship goods across the
seas, and the Arctic is seeing exponential increases in vessel
traffic and human activity and we continue to see persistent
efforts by terrorists and transnational criminal networks to
exploit the maritime environment.
It is Coast Guard's responsibility to detect and interdict
contraband and illegal drug traffic, enforce U.S. immigration
laws, protect our valuable natural resources and counter
threats to U.S. maritime and economic security worldwide, and
it is often the most effective to do this as far as possible
from our shores.
A capable offshore fleet of cutters is critical to the
layered approach, and this is the same area that has caused me
concern, as I have mentioned in the past. I am deeply grateful
that now we have 8 National Security Cutters in sight, but now
we need to move on to our next large project, which is
replacing our medium-endurance cutters which, as mentioned,
they are averaging 46 years old. In fact, the oldest one turns
50 this year.
I sailed on one of those cutters, the Coast Guard Cutter
Valiant, when I was a brand-new cadet. The ship was only 3
years old at the time, and Valiant has been sailing the better
part--by the time I was commissioned in the service, it had
been sailing for about a decade. Solely due to the
determination of our sailors, our cuttermen, our naval
engineers and our modernized mission support system, Valiant
will still be sailing when I leave the service after nearly 44
years.
So as good as our people are and our support systems are,
it is no longer possible to sustain these vessels. In fact, 3
of these same cutters, sister ships, needed emergency dry docks
for repairs to their failing hulls this year.
Now, I am fully aware of the fiscal constraints we face as
a Nation, but we must continue to support the development of
the Offshore Patrol Cutter. I am committed to working with the
Department, the administration, and the Congress to ensure we
can achieve the Coast Guard's critical recapitalization needs
in an affordable manner.
Closer to home, we work with the interagency, the
intergovernmental and commercial partners to patrol maritime
approaches, escort vessels, monitor critical infrastructure,
and inspect port facilities. These partnerships continue to
enhance our capability and effectiveness along our coasts and
waterways.
To maximize the effectiveness of our efforts, we are a
member of the National intelligence community. We screen ships,
crews, and passengers bound for the States before they reach
our ports. Using our maritime intelligence fusion centers and
intelligence coordination center, we work hand-in-hand with
Customs and Border Protection to analyze arriving vessels and
highlight potential threats. Last year we collectively screened
more than 126,000 vessels and over 30 million people seeking to
enter the United States. These efforts enhance maritime domain
awareness, a key element that supports the Department of
Homeland Security layered security strategy.
As the Nation's maritime governance force, the Coast Guard
possesses unique authorities, capabilities, and partnerships.
Coupled with capable ships, aircraft, and boats operated by
highly proficient personnel, we maximize these authorities and
capabilities to execute layered security throughout the entire
maritime domain, and our many partnerships facilitate the
integration of Federal resources with State and local
capabilities.
We are a ready force on a continuous watch with a proven
ability to surge assets and our people to crisis events when
and where they occur.
So I thank you for this opportunity to testify today and I
look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Papp follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert J. Papp
February 4, 2014
introduction
Good morning, Chairwoman Miller, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and
distinguished Members of the subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here
today to discuss the Coast Guard's homeland security missions.
For more than 2 centuries, the U.S. Coast Guard has safeguarded the
Nation's maritime interests on our rivers and ports, in coastal
regions, on the high seas, and around the world. The Coast Guard is at
all times an armed service, a Federal law enforcement agency, a
humanitarian service, and a member of the intelligence community
charged with significant safety, security, and stewardship
responsibilities in the maritime domain. Every day the Coast Guard
conducts search and rescue, escorts vessels carrying dangerous cargoes,
interdicts drug and migrant smugglers, patrols our ports and waterways,
enforces fisheries laws, responds to oil and hazardous material spills,
maintains aids to navigation, screens commercial ships and crews
entering U.S. ports, inspects U.S. flagged vessels, examines cargo
containers, investigates marine accidents, trains international
partners, and supports Overseas Contingency Operations. This diverse
mission set and authorities are vital to the safety and security of our
Nation's maritime transportation system and essential to our Nation's
economic growth. With 223 years of experience as the Nation's maritime
first responder, the Coast Guard provides tremendous value and service
to the public.
a layered system to counter maritime risk
As a maritime nation, the United States relies on the safe, secure,
and free flow of legitimate global commerce on the high seas,
throughout the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)--the largest of any
country in the world--and inside America's ports and waterways.
With more than 4.5 million square miles of territorial seas and
EEZ, 95,000 miles of coastline, 12,000 miles of navigable waters, over
350 ports, and significant international maritime border interests with
Canada and Mexico, the U.S. maritime domain is broad in its scope and
diversity, requiring an integrated and layered system for security.
The strategy of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
Coast Guard is to increase maritime security through a layered system
that reaches beyond the country's physical borders. This system begins
in foreign ports, spans the high seas, encompasses the U.S. EEZ and
territorial seas, and continues into our ports. The Coast Guard's mix
of cutters, aircraft, boats, and deployable specialized forces (DSF),
as well as international and domestic partnerships, allow the Coast
Guard to leverage its unique maritime security authorities and
competencies to reduce risk and improve security throughout the
maritime domain.
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Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is one of the most important
aspects of the Coast Guard's layered security system and it supports
all levels (strategic, operational, and tactical) of decision making.
Effective MDA requires efficient information sharing and coordination
among numerous participants at international, Federal, regional, State,
local, territorial, and Tribal levels of government, as well as with
maritime industry and private-sector partners. MDA is more than an
awareness of ships en route to a particular port; it also entails
knowledge of:
People.--Crew, passengers, owners, and operators;
Cargo.--All elements of the global supply chain;
Infrastructure.--Vital elements of the Nation's maritime
infrastructure, including facilities, services, and systems;
Environment.--Weather, environmentally-sensitive areas, and
living marine resources;
Trends.--Shipping routes, migration routes, and seasonal
changes; and
Threats.--Potential or indication of illicit or hostile
activity in the maritime environment.
international cooperation
Layered security begins overseas. The Coast Guard fosters strategic
relationships with partner nations to detect, deter, and counter
threats as early and as far from U.S. shores as possible. To achieve
that end, the Coast Guard conducts foreign port assessments and
leverages the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) International
Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code to assess effectiveness of
security and antiterrorism measures in foreign ports. The ISPS Code
provides an international regime to ensure ship and port facilities
take appropriate preventative measures consistent with our domestic
regime under the Maritime Transportation Security Act. Through the
International Port Security Program, the Coast Guard performs overseas
port assessments to determine the effectiveness of security and
antiterrorism measures exhibited by foreign trading partners. Since the
inception of the International Port Security Program in 2004, Coast
Guard personnel have visited more than 150 countries and approximately
1,300 port facilities. These countries generally receive biennial
assessments to verify compliance with the ISPS Code and U.S. maritime
security regulations. Vessels arriving in non-ISPS Code-compliant
countries are required to take additional security precautions while in
those ports and may subject to boarding and inspection by the Coast
Guard before being granted permission to enter U.S. ports. In specific
cases, these vessels may be refused entry. Furthermore, the
International Port Security Program conducts targeted capacity building
efforts to help countries that fail to meet ISPS Code achieve
compliance, and to prevent countries with marginal compliance from
falling into non-compliance.
security and governance on the high seas
America's diplomatic strength and economic security depend upon the
free flow of global commerce and a proper system of governance in the
maritime domain. Coast Guard responsibilities on the high seas include
detecting and interdicting contraband and illegal drug traffic,
enforcing U.S. immigration laws at sea, and countering threats to
maritime and economic security worldwide. A capable fleet of Maritime
Patrol Forces (comprised of Coast Guard cutters and aircraft, and their
crews) and DSF are critical to the layered security approach.
Within the EEZ, the Coast Guard enforces our Nation's living marine
resources (LMR) and marine-protected species laws and regulations to
ensure the integrity of the EEZ, and to ensure the continued viability
of critical fish stocks. This enforcement involves the deterrence,
detection, and interdiction of illegal incursions into the EEZ by
foreign fishing vessels. As these incursions represent a threat to our
Nation's renewable natural resources and sovereignty, the protection of
the United States EEZ contributes to another fundamental layer of the
Coast Guard maritime security system.
Coast Guard at-sea presence ensures compliance with international
agreements for the management of LMR through enforcement of
conservation and management measures created by Regional Fishery
Management Organizations (RFMOs). Of the 4.5 million square miles that
comprise the EEZ, more than 75% is outside the contiguous zone of the
United States.
The Coast Guard maintains a strong at-sea presence to disrupt the
maritime flow of illegal drugs and other contraband through the
maritime drug transit zone. This presence supports National and
international strategies to deter and disrupt the market for illegal
drugs, dismantle Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) networks, and
prevent transnational threats from reaching the United States. Through
45 established bilateral agreements, the Coast Guard facilitates
coordination of operations and the forward deployment of boats,
cutters, aircraft, and personnel to deter and counter threats as close
to their origin as possible. By extending our law enforcement
capabilities into the territorial seas of other countries, the Coast
Guard is at the forefront in assisting partner nations' efforts to
reduce the production and transportation of illicit drugs within their
sovereign boundaries.
The Coast Guard also relies on joint, interagency, and
international partnerships to conduct drug interdiction. More
specifically, the Coast Guard leverages the availability of U.S. Navy
and Allied Nation vessels to enhance presence and expand interdiction
opportunities by embarking specially-trained Law Enforcement
Detachments (LEDET). Coast Guard LEDETs employ their distinctive law
enforcement authorities to stop threats and to gather critical
information regarding vessels, crew, passengers, and cargo destined for
the United States. Over the last 5 years, Coast Guard Maritime Patrol
Forces and LEDETs have removed approximately 500 metric tons of
cocaine, with a wholesale value of nearly $17 billion.
The Coast Guard enforces U.S. immigration laws and international
conventions against human smuggling through at-sea interdiction and
rapid repatriation of undocumented migrants attempting to reach the
United States unlawfully. The Coast Guard maintains a constant law
enforcement presence at-sea to deter undocumented migrants and
transnational human smugglers from using maritime routes to enter the
United States, to detect and interdict undocumented migrants and
smugglers far from the U.S. border, and to expand Coast Guard
participation in multi-agency and international border security
initiatives. The Coast Guard accomplishes this mission in conjunction
with other Federal, State, and local agencies, including U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the
Department of State. While the Coast Guard leads the interdiction
mission on the high seas, partnerships with CBP and ICE are critical
for successful shore-side interdiction operations.
The United States is also an Arctic nation, with significant
interests in the future of the region. As oil and natural gas
exploration in the Arctic attracts significant interest from the
international community, the importance of the Arctic is more critical
than ever. The Coast Guard, as the maritime component of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has specific statutory
responsibilities in U.S. Arctic waters. U.S. Coast Guard continues to
assess its responsibilities in support of the emerging economic,
environmental, and political issues, and will help advance our
interests in that region.
In the rapidly-evolving geopolitical landscape, the United States
must maintain an offshore maritime presence to promote Maritime
Governance and to protect America's National and homeland security
interests. Moreover, with renewed National focus on the Asia Pacific,
emerging international interest in the Arctic, and continuing
obligations in the Western Hemisphere, a versatile U.S. Coast Guard
offshore capability is an important component of the Coast Guard's
layered security strategy.
security in coastal waters
To address potential threats approaching our shores, Coast Guard
ships, boats, aircraft, and DSF provide the ability to monitor, track,
interdict, and board vessels. In addition, interagency partnerships
have an increasing role in the layered security approach. Coast Guard
Area Commanders receive support from the National Vessel Movement
Center and Maritime Intelligence Fusion Centers (MIFCs), which screen
commercial vessels operating within their areas of responsibility. The
MIFCs focus on screening characteristics associated with the vessels
itself, such as ownership, ownership associations, cargo, and previous
activity. Coast Guard vessel screening results are disseminated to the
appropriate DHS Maritime Interagency Operations Center (IOC), Sector
Command Center, local intelligence staffs, CBP, and other interagency
partners to evaluate and take action on any potential risks.
Additionally, vessel screening develops a manageable set of targets for
potential Coast Guard boardings and/or inspections by Maritime Patrol
Forces, Shore-Based Forces, or DSF. Complementary screening efforts
occur at the National and tactical levels. At the National level, the
Intelligence Coordination Center's Coastwatch Branch, which is co-
located with CBP at the National Targeting Center, screens crew and
passenger information. Through our partnership with CBP, we have
expanded access to counterterrorism, law enforcement, and immigration
databases, and this integration has led to greater information sharing
and more effective security operations. In 2013, Coastwatch screened
approximately 126,000 Advance Notice of Arrivals (ANOAs) and 30.7
million crew and passenger records of vessels before they entered U.S.
Ports.
security in u.s. ports and interagency partnerships
In the Nation's 361 maritime ports, the Coast Guard, along with our
Federal, State, local, and Tribal partners, working in concert with
port stakeholders, patrol our waters and critical infrastructure,
conduct vessel escorts, and inspect vessels and facilities. The Coast
Guard utilizes data from its Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model
(MSRAM) for prioritizing security escorts and patrols. MSRAM is a
terrorism risk analysis tool and methodology used at all Coast Guard
Sectors to perform detailed risk analysis of the Marine Transportation
System (MTS), maritime Critical Infrastructure, and other potential
targets, such as large congregations of people in the maritime domain.
MSRAM offers an analytical interface capable of generating tailored
results to support risk-based decision making at the strategic,
operational, and tactical levels.
Coast Guard Captains of the Port (COTPs), in their role as Federal
Maritime Security Coordinator (FMSC), significantly enhance domestic
maritime transportation security and preparedness through long-standing
cooperation and coordination with their respective Area Maritime
Security Committees.
As the FMSC, the Coast Guard COTP works in partnership with
Government and private-sector AMSC members to manage the Nation's 43
Area Maritime Security (AMS) Plans. These plans provide Government and
private industry port partners with a coordination and communication
framework to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from a
Transportation Security Incident or the threat thereof. The COTPs and
their respective AMSCs validate their AMS Plan and ensure plan
familiarity by conducting annual exercises, as required by the Maritime
Transportation Security Act (MTSA). In and around our ports, the Coast
Guard also maintains robust multi-mission maritime first responder
assets capable of saving lives, protecting property and the
environment, and responding to disasters within the maritime domain.
The Coast Guard leverages its broad COTP authorities and its role as
FMSC and Federal On-Scene Coordinator to coordinate response to
disasters such as BP Deepwater Horizon and Hurricane Sandy. The Coast
Guard is also working with other components of DHS and with the
maritime sector to determine how the critical infrastructure security
and resilience guidance of Executive Order 13636 and Presidential
Policy Directive 21 should be leveraged by the community.
Coast Guard Maritime Security and Response Operations (MSRO) apply
our authorities, competencies, capabilities, capacities, and
partnerships to deny the use and exploitation of the maritime domain by
criminal or hostile actors. The Coast Guard coordinates the activities
of many Federal, regional, State, Tribal, territorial, and local
Government agencies as well as the maritime industry to prevent,
disrupt, protect, respond to, and recover from terror-related risks in
the maritime domain. In 2013, Coast Guard forces conducted:
More than 670 security boardings of high-interest vessels;
Close to 8,500 security boardings of small vessels;
More than 2,000 escorts of high-capacity passenger vessels,
e.g., ferries and cruise ships;
More than 1,200 escorts of high-value U.S. naval vessels
transiting U.S. waterways; and
More than 690 escorts of vessels carrying certain dangerous
cargoes.
Maritime Security Response Operations enhance the resilience of
maritime CIKR and the MTS. As such, MSRO plays a critical role in the
Coast Guard's Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security mission by
deterring adversaries, maximizing the probability of disrupting their
pre-operational planning, and providing a response framework to prevent
and respond to maritime transportation security incidents.
maritime threat response
When the Coast Guard is alerted to a specific maritime security
threat to the United States that requires a coordinated U.S. Government
response, the Maritime Operational Threat Response (MOTR) Plan is
activated. The MOTR Plan uses established protocols and an integrated
network of National-level maritime command and operations centers to
facilitate real-time Federal interagency communication, coordination,
and decision making to ensure a timely, unified, and decisive response
to maritime threats.
Coast Guard DSF are highly-trained, proficient forces that provide
field commanders with the ability to rapidly respond to emerging
threats throughout the maritime environment, including threats of
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The Coast Guard has also
established a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and
Explosives (CBRNE) program and has worked extensively with DHS's
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and U.S. Special Operations Command
to train and equip Coast Guard personnel to detect and respond to CBRNE
threats in the maritime domain.
conclusion
The Coast Guard's layered security regime is vital to the Nation's
security. Our authorities, capabilities, competencies, and partnerships
provide the President, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of
Defense, and other National leaders with a ready force and the
capabilities to lead or support a range of operations to ensure safety,
security, and stewardship in the maritime domain. Through this
interconnected system, the Coast Guard stands ready to meet offshore,
coastal, and port threats that have the potential to impact our
National security and economic prosperity. From our efforts to improve
maritime domain awareness to our international and domestic
partnerships, and investments in cutter, boat, and aircraft
recapitalization, the Coast Guard continues to improve the maritime
security system to counter maritime threats and facilitate the safe
flow of legitimate commerce.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and thank you for
your continued support of the U.S. Coast Guard. I would be pleased to
answer your questions.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much, Admiral.
As I mentioned to you before we began this hearing, coming
from the Detroit sector, State of Michigan, from the Great
Lakes region, I have to start off with a question about your
icebreaking capabilities in the Great Lakes. We, as everybody
knows, had a really particularly cold, frigid winter. I heard
the other day that there is more ice cover on Lake Superior
than has ever been recorded before. I am not sure if that is
true, but certainly when you look at some of these aerials,
there is as much ice as I can ever remember seeing.
With the very bitter cold that happened, we have got--when
that ice starts melting here in the spring, we are going to
have some tremendous ice jams happening through some of the
areas of the Great Lakes, through the St. Claire River, all
these navigable waterways that make up our commerce shipping
lanes. Obviously, maritime shipping commerce in the Great Lakes
is a multi-billion dollar industry, so very, very critical.
I am just wondering, in fact, I have had an opportunity in
past years of going out to accompanying on a mission for some
icebreaking. It is interesting to watch that happen. I think
next week I am going to be doing the same kind of a thing up in
the Great Lakes basin, again just on a dedicated mission that
you were already going on to be able to sort of observe some of
those things, but I also was looking at the list of the
icebreaking capability that you have in the Great Lakes, and it
is a remarkable inventory, although probably never enough.
So I guess I would just ask you first to comment a bit on
your current resources that you have, because, as I say, I
think this spring, we have the potential of having probably
some of the biggest ice jams that have ever happened there, and
so, sir, if you could a little bit, how would you sort-of try
to keep ahead of that with the resources that you have? Do you
have to move the icebreaking capability around the Great Lakes
basin a bit?
I know you are in the process of refurbishing some of your
icebreakers there. Then are you, as far as authorizing
additional, what is your thought on current and then going into
the future there?
Admiral Papp. Madam Chairwoman, as you know, the Great
Lakes are near and dear to my heart as a previous commander up
there. I think even back now 4, 6, 8, almost 10 years ago when
I went up there as the commander, one of the things I
recognized was the 140-foot icebreakers were getting old, they
were well past their mid-age, and we had not done any
renovations on them.
One of the things I was really proud of was that as the
district commander, I put in a request to move an additional
icebreaker up there. When I moved to be the area commander, I
endorsed it and sent it on to Coast Guard headquarters. By the
time I became Commandant, it got to my desk and I approved the
extra icebreaker for the Great Lakes.
Actually, it was good that we did that at the time. It was
because they were becoming increasingly unreliable due to
maintenance issues and age.
I am very happy to report this year that we now have a
program in place, it is called the in-service vessel
sustainment project. In fact, Morro Bay, from Cleveland, will
be the first ship to go into that. We estimate it is going to
cost about $14 million per ship. The first one, Morro Bay, will
take about 12 months as the Coast Guard yard goes through the
process and learns lessons from it, and then we will
subsequently put each one of the 140's through there and it
will take each one about 9 months.
So there will be at times when we will go from 6 down to 5
up on the Great Lakes as we go through this process, but the
end result is going to be more reliable icebreakers up there.
Mackinaw, of course, is relatively new in Coast Guard terms,
and the 2 225 buoy tender icebreakers are relatively new in
Coast Guard terms as well.
So I am very pleased with what we have up there. This
winter's an anomaly. It will really test our resources, but I
think we are well-prepared for it.
The other thing that I would add is that the Coast Guard
reaches out internationally. We meet annually with the Canadian
Coast Guard. The commissioner and I hold a summit meeting, and
part of what we do is work with our Canadian partners who have
icebreakers as well. We have a command center that stands up
every winter there so that we can balance both Canadian and
U.S. needs. Oftentimes we are breaking in Canadians and
Canadian vessels are breaking paths for us, and we get the best
out of the resources of our two countries to keep the lakes
open.
Mrs. Miller. I appreciate that, Admiral. Just another issue
there, I suppose, as we have talked about the water assets that
you have now in regards to the air assets that you have, it is
my understanding with the types of helicopters that you have,
to the Great Lakes basin again, that there is very limited
amount, if any, of helicopters that have de-icing capability.
Admiral Papp. Right.
Mrs. Miller. If that is the case, it just strikes you as
very odd. Obviously it limits your ability, I would think,
depending on the weather conditions, if you don't have de-icing
capability. What can we do to assist with the--first of all, is
that true, there is no de-icing, and second, what could this
committee do to assist to make sure that people are resourced
properly there as well?
Admiral Papp. Right. Yes, ma'am. Our short-range recovery
helicopters, the H-65s, both Air Station Traverse City and Air
Station Detroit, that is their inventory, is H-65s. If you go
back in history at Traverse City, there was a time where we had
H-3 helicopters, which now have been replaced by the H-60,
which is our medium-range helicopter. The bigger the
helicopter, the more powerful it is, the more equipment you can
put in it; and when they become smaller, you conserve by the
amount of equipment that you put in it in order to get
endurance. The decision was made a long time ago to put H-65s
at both those stations. I was an advocate 10 years ago to put
the H-60 helicopter at Traverse City.
It is not just the de-icing. H-60s do have de-icing, and
that would come in helpful, but it is also the range that the
helicopters have to fly up there. I literally was on a flight
leaving from Traverse City to go down to Duluth. We had to stop
and refuel before we got to Duluth in an H-65. You generally
get about 2 hours of endurance in an H-65. You get about 6
hours of endurance in an H-60, plus greater lift and weather
capability.
It is not just to the western extreme in Superior. We also
often had to rely upon the Canadians in Lake Ontario because we
couldn't get all the way over there from our air stations.
So the H-60 if it was in Traverse City would give us much
more capability both in weather and in range, and I think that
is a wise operational decision. We have put that forward a
number of times, but in order to do that, we would--and move
helicopters around, we would need to close down the two air
facilities that sit on Lake Michigan and Waukegan and Muskegon
as a tradeoff in order to do that, but I think on balance,
having the greater capability of the H-60 far outweighs having
those two air facs.
Plus, we have put increased surface assets, faster boats,
more capable boats around Lake Michigan as well, which
mitigates any impact that those air fac closures would have.
Mrs. Miller. I appreciate those comments, and we certainly
will consider them here on this committee, as well as I also
sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the
Coast Guard Subcommittee there, and when we do the
authorization for the Coast Guard, I am going to keep all those
comments in mind as well.
Just my last question as well, one of the things that this
subcommittee has talked about extensively in the last number of
years is how we can really advantage the various agencies as we
draw down and return from theater with the types of equipment
that we have had in Iraq, Afghanistan, et cetera, and really
try to make sure that we get the best bang for the taxpayers'
buck on equipment that can be utilized, as I say, by other
agencies. I do know that the Air Force gave the Coast Guard, or
transferred, I should say, to the Coast Guard recently some C-
27s, I think 14 of them?
Admiral Papp. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Miller. Do you have those now or you are getting them
now, and how do you anticipate you would utilize those?
Admiral Papp. So legislation has been passed for the
transfer, and in the fiscal year 2014 budget, we received money
to stand up a project office to facilitate the swap. It is
tracking nicely. I don't have the exact time line right now,
but it will be in short order. We will be transferring all 14
over and start converting them to Coast Guard use.
Mrs. Miller. Okay. Good. We appreciate that.
The Chairwoman recognizes the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me again thank the Chairwoman, and
thank the Commandant very much.
Let me say that as I pose these questions, I do so for
establishing on the record that we have to listen to your
counsel and advice. For someone who served for 40 years and
spent his time among his men and women in the Coast Guard and
seeing what their needs are, I think this should be a telling
moment in your testimony as to how we move forward. So let me
thank you very much.
I just want to put on the record in confirming some of the
statements that you made in your testimony this morning that in
its annual review of the United States Coast Guard mission
performance, the DHS Office of Inspector General found that the
total number of vessel and aircraft resource hours available to
conduct Coast Guard missions declined by over 6,600 hours for
fiscal year 2012. This decline was due to increased rates of
asset failures, the decommission of obsolete assets before new
assets are acquired to replace them, and reduced funding
available to support operations.
Now, I do agree that the work of the Coast Guard has been
unparalleled with respect to keeping these assets going, but I
think it is clear that we have to listen, and as the Chairwoman
indicated, where we were able to get some new equipment, that
we need to continue to build on the importance of restoring the
Coast Guard's very important equipment.
So I would like to ask a few questions along those lines,
making note of the fact that the Coast Guard has 42,000 active-
duty, 8,200 reserve, 8,000 civilian personnel carrying out 11
statutory missions. You in your earlier testimony indicated the
importance of making sure the ship remains on course. So let me
just ask one question as I lead into more specific questions.
If you could, Commandant, just tell us, where do you think
the Coast Guard stands today?
Admiral Papp. Well, we have some of the best people, first
of all. Let me start with the people. Of those 42,000, 8,200
and 8,000 active-duty, reserve and civilians, they are some of
the finest people I have seen in my entire career. I recognized
a number of people at an all-hands meeting last week.
Three relatively junior enlisted people, all three of them
had college degrees, in fact, one of them has a master's degree
and others are working on their master's degrees. Our retention
is the highest it has ever been. People want to serve. We are
having to come up with extraordinary measures to reduce our
workforce just to keep a healthy flow going through. So I could
not be more pleased with the young men and women, the young
Americans that are stepping forward now to serve in the Coast
Guard.
Where I perhaps feel I am letting them down from time to
time is that I have had a focus on proficiency. One of the
things that really concerned me when I became Commandant was we
had lost, in a 2-year period, we had lost 14 aviators due to
accidents, and we had a number of boat accidents, in fact, one
resulted in the death of an 8-year-old child, a civilian, and
other associated accidents, but the rate of Coast Guard people
dying in operational situations was just deplorable.
So we have restored a focus on proficiency, a focus on
mission excellence, but where we start to let those people
down, who are intent on becoming the best they can be, is when
we get into measures like sequestration where the money has to
come out of our operating funds, it comes out of the flight
hours, the boat hours, the cutter days underway, where our
people gain that proficiency. So we are shortchanging our
people to a certain extent, and that has me worried.
That is why the fiscal year 2014 budget as passed is a
relief for me, because the effects of sequestration will be
long-term, but you get lagging indicators for that in terms of
training and proficiency. I didn't want to go back to a time
when we weren't focused on proficiency, so restoring these
hours through the 2014 budget are going to help us quite a bit.
We have recapitalized almost our entire boat fleet due to
the administration and the Congress. Our in-shore portion of
the Coast Guard is the best I have ever seen it. We have put
more people at our stations, we have deployable specialized
forces. We have practically brand-new boats, 500 boats
throughout the Coast Guard and they are all practically brand-
new.
But having said that, that is very well-defended, the
coastal portion and our ports, but in football terms, that is
doing red zone defense, that they are inside the 20-yard line
when they get to that point in our ports.
So the one area that is really deficient is the offshore
portion of our fleet. Those ships that I spoke of that are--we
now have the replacements, the National Security Cutter, for
our high-endurance cutters that we are retiring.
The next thing is to turn to replacing those medium-
endurance cutters that are, as I said, 46 years on average and
some now that will be going over 50 years old this year. That
is a very expensive proposition, but it is needed, because we
can't continue to run the old ships. I also as Commandant need
to look out 10, 20, 30, and 40 years from now in terms of what
tools will the Coast Guard need then, because they have to be
built now.
So people-wise, we are in good shape. Our shore is in
relatively good shape, our forces close to shore. It is the
off-shore fleet that takes care of that largest exclusive
economic zone in the world that we need to pay our attention
to.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So the NSC is fine, but we need to do work
on the OPC and the fast response as well?
Admiral Papp. Well, the NSC is working fine, the 3 that we
have out there are great. No. 4 will be out there in October,
the Hamilton, and we have 6--5, 6, 7, and 8 paid--I am sorry--
5, 6, and 7 paid for. We have long lead money for No. 8, and I
am hopeful that the construction cost for 8 will be in the 2015
budget.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me give you two quick questions, and I
will just say them together, if you don't mind.
Admiral Papp. Sure.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Then if you could just--I went to Mumbai
soon after the attack in Mumbai, India, and although they were
not fancy boats, they were attacks coming off water, and
obviously without protection. My interest would be, how
equipped are we to prevent terrorist attacks from offshore
vessels, water vessels? Some of our beaches and areas are
equally unprotected around America.
The other is, too, I have watched the TWIC card, I am a
TWIC card holder, I think I may be on an expiration point right
now, so I need to get in line, but I have witnessed the
implementation and we have discussed it and your members have
discussed it. In May 2013, the Government Accountability Office
released a report calling into question the current Government-
centric approach to port security credentialing, which DHS is
responsible, for the enrollment card issuance and security
vetting is the best option. Should this Government-centric
permits to the TW--to TWIC card be revisited, and what do you
think needs to be done? So two questions, on the terrorism
ability and this issue dealing with the TWIC card.
Thank you very much.
Admiral Papp. Yes, ma'am. I would never sit here and tell
you that a Mumbai-type attack could not happen in the United
States, that would be foolish, but we are doing everything we
can to prevent a Mumbai-type attack. Given that we have the
broad expanse of the Pacific and the Atlantic, generally we
will have warnings, and it would probably have to come from a
ship that is offshore if it happened.
Two things on that. First of all, you have to have good
intelligence, and that is why it was so important for the Coast
Guard to be included in the intelligence community, because we
can leverage the Department of Defense and the other
intelligence agency partners to keep track of potential threats
that are coming towards our shores, learn about them in
advance, and interdict them as far off shore as possible.
Once again, validation, justification, why we need an off-
shore fleet so we can interdict anything coming towards our
shores, so that we can have a persistent presence out there.
If it does get close, we have a robust partnership, we have
area maritime security committees that are run by Coast Guard
captains of the port in 44 areas of our country that work with
Federal, State, and local partners and intelligence community
and others to keep track of what is coming into our ports, to
screen and vet any potential threats, any ships and passengers
that are coming into our ports, and I think that is working
well. As I say, we have our conventional forces within the
ports, and we are allocating them through risk-based measures
to do random patrols to make sure that critical infrastructure
is taken care of.
The other aspect that I would like to point out is, that I
am proud of is that our deployable specialized forces, the
MSST's and the MSRT that were created after 9/11, we got the
resources, we put them together, they were overseen by what we
call the deployable operations group, but we didn't have
strategy, we didn't have doctrine on how we were going to
employ them.
One of the things we set to work immediately on is first of
all doing a stem-to-stern review of all our deployable
specialized forces and how we employ them and then get the
doctrine out there. We started with first of all a new
publication, Coast Guard Pub 3.0, which describes how we
conduct Coast Guard operations, but 3.1 talks about how we
integrate deployable specialized forces and why do we need
deployable specialized forces.
That is in Pub 3.2: short notice maritime response,
advanced interdiction, picking people up before they get into
our ports, and that is what we have been training and directing
our deployable specialized forces, the maritime safety and
security teams, and the maritime security response team to be
prepared to take on those challenges.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much, Admiral.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman
from Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Admiral Papp.
Admiral Papp. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Palazzo. It is a pleasure to see you today. Good
morning. Thank you for coming to tell us about your needs and
the needs of the men and women in the U.S. Coast Guard.
You mentioned the Hamilton briefly. Somebody wants me to
say how is your wife, Linda, doing and is she looking forward
to the commissioning in the near future?
Admiral Papp. She is. I didn't mention that my wife is the
sponsor for the Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton. She smashed the
champagne bottle a couple months ago on the ship and will do
the commissioning in Charleston probably in October, but I will
just be a retired Coast Guardsman at the time, her husband
attending with her.
Mr. Palazzo. Yeah. Well, it is you know, south Mississippi
and Huntington Ingalls, we appreciate your trips and visits to
the shipyard down there, and it is going to be a fantastic
ship, and she should be very proud. It is a state-of-the-art
craft.
One of the things you and I have discussed in the past
concern the shipbuilding needs of the Coast Guard. We have
spoken at length about the NSC and the future of that program,
but also about the balancing act that you are required to do
with other ships as well, such as the OPC, the icebreaker.
Do you feel like the current budget, you touched on this,
is on a better track for meeting your needs and the needs of
the Coast Guard since we have last spoken?
Admiral Papp. Well, sir, I think I have said this before as
well, any service chief--no service chief will ever come up
here and say, I have got all the money I want, and I don't have
all the money I would like. There are many things that I would
like to do for my service, but I--as a taxpayer and as a
steward of the taxpayers' money, at a certain point in time in
the negotiation process--and I do believe that each year I have
gotten a fair hearing from my secretaries and OMB and the
President.
At a certain point, I am told what my top line is and then
I have to juggle and balance and make some compromises, yes,
from time to time to make sure that we are taking care of
current-day operations but also planning for the future so that
those future Coast Guardsmen will have the right tools to work
with 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
So it has been a balancing act, but we did not think that
we were going to get 8 National Security Cutters, and we are on
the verge of getting that right now, and we are very close to
doing a down select for three candidates to design the Offshore
Patrol Cutter, and I am very optimistic about that program.
Then we will have to figure out, or my relief will have to
figure out how we fit those things in the budget in subsequent
years.
Mr. Palazzo. Do you feel like you have the flexibility to
basically meet the needs of your shipbuilding plan?
Admiral Papp. I----
Mr. Palazzo. The right mix of ships?
Admiral Papp. I think so at this point. The
administration's been giving me enough to keep our programs
going. The Congress has at certain points plussed that up a
little bit to help us, for instance, the long lead money that
was put in the 2014 budget to--for NSC No. 8, so the process
has been working and we have had enough flexibility to keep our
programs going on the time line that we predicted.
Mr. Palazzo. Is there anything that the House can do to
ensure that the men and women in the U.S. Coast Guard have the
tools and equipment that they need so they can do their jobs,
do it safely, and come back home to their families?
Admiral Papp. Well, I would say that the men and women of
the Congress should scrutinize every appropriations bill that
comes up here, and you have to make balanced decisions on where
the priorities are, listen to people like me who are trying to
advocate to make sure that people have the right tools, and
then make decisions with good counsel.
Mr. Palazzo. Well, Admiral, I appreciate that.
I would just like to add a few comments. I mean, it seems
like we are continuously fighting over shrinking discretionary
funds, you know, the Coast Guard budget, DOD, NASA, pretty much
every discretionary agency that falls under that, we continue
to fight over it. We understand that, you know, we need this
equipment, we need these tools, we need to be able to protect
the homeland, but we also need to be able to protect America's
interests at home and abroad.
I think, you know, it is unfair to all Americans that we
need to get our financial affairs in order, and we have to do
that by addressing the No. 1 driver of our deficits and our
debt, and that is out-of-control mandatory spending, so that we
can continue to fund the U.S. Coast Guard, because not only do
the men and women in the Coast Guard deserve it, but Americans
expect it.
So sir, I know you are looking forward to your retirement.
Enjoy it. Thank you for, you know, not only what your wife's
doing sponsoring the NSC Hamilton, but good luck in your next
endeavors. Thank you.
Admiral Papp. Well, thank you, sir.
I wouldn't want to leave here with you thinking that I
don't appreciate and comprehend the challenges that we find in
the budget. As I said earlier, when I am given a top line, that
is when I make the tough decisions on what we are going to
continue, what we can do, and how we balance current operations
versus the future, but along the way, it is not my job to
decide what that top line is. My job is to identify the
resources we are going to need, what are our requirements.
In my best judgment, based on 40 years, 14 years at sea and
doing Coast Guard operations across the full spectrum of what
we do, what do we need to do those tools? I don't think there
is anybody better-prepared at this juncture than I am, after 4
decades, to say these are the requirements that we have. You
may not be able to fund them all, but it is my job to be honest
and forthright and candid in terms of what we need, and I have
tried to do that every time I have come up here.
Mr. Palazzo. We appreciate that candor. Thank you.
I yield back.
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir.
Mrs. Miller. Thank the gentleman.
The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
O'Rourke.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you.
Mr. Commandant, I would also like to join my colleagues in
thanking you for your service and through you thanking the men
and women who serve our country in the Coast Guard.
Admiral Papp. Thank you, sir.
Mr. O'Rourke. I want to follow up on some of the comments
you just made in some of the questioning that we have had from
the committee today about budgets and some of the tough choices
that you have to make in working with that top line number that
you keep referring to.
I was reading some comments of yours from a speech that you
gave in 2012, and one of the things that you said is that we
have to have the courage to be able to say no sometimes, and
you talked about decreasing resources, and the Ranking Member
talked about fewer than--or we had less than 6,000 hours from
previous year this past year in terms of time that we could
spend on missions with the Coast Guard, and you have additional
responsibilities in the Arctic as more water is freed up and
there is more energy exploration there. In your comments in
2012 you were talking about additional responsibilities when it
comes to cyber threats and standing up a cyber command within
the Coast Guard and adding to what the Department of Defense is
already doing.
The way that it was summarized in an article I read, the
headline said, ``Shrinking Coast Guard Must Cut Drug War to
Boost Cyber and Arctic.'' I wondered--and I know that the
nature of headlines is to sensationalize what people say and to
draw a reader in, but I wondered if you could reflect a little
bit on some of those tough choices, the additional
responsibilities and where we might have to say no through the
Coast Guard and as a country when it comes to the various
threats that we face at our maritime ports and beyond the
ports.
Admiral Papp. Sure.
Going back to what you said originally, one of our greatest
strengths in our service culturally is a can-do attitude. One
of our greatest weaknesses is a can-do attitude as well,
because oftentimes we take on more than we can with the
resources that we have, and we get examples like that all the
time.
For instance, back about a year or more when we only had
one icebreaker, the Healy, in service, and it was active in the
Arctic, we got a request because a leased, I think it was a
leased Finnish or Russian icebreaker that the National Science
Foundation had contracted for was not going to be able to go
down and break out McMurdo, and they put in a request to take
our one icebreaker. It would have been tempting to charge off
and put our people through more work and go down there, but I
said no, because we only have one icebreaker, the Arctic is our
territory, our exclusive economic zone, and I can't take the
only icebreaker that the United States had in service and send
it down there. It was a tough decision.
We don't have as many large cutters now as we had in the
past. We used to be able to participate in Navy exercises
throughout the Pacific, and frankly, it is time well spent for
our country, because there are countries that want to have
coast guards and they enjoy seeing our ships and our sailors,
we do cooperative training, but the Arctic has opened up now
and we need to send one of our cutters up there, so we had to
pull out of Navy exercises, something we hadn't done in
decades, in order to provide the ship days to go up and take
care of our responsibilities in the Arctic.
So those are the types of things I am talking about. Rather
than chase the--I call it, chasing shiny balls, you know,
things that are really attractive and we want to race off and
do them, we have to stick to the work that we are required to
do in a decreased resource environment.
Counter-drug, there is no way we would voluntarily cut back
on counter-drug, because it is such a successful program for
us. The only reason we cut back this past year, and we had
about a 30 percent reduction this year in drugs disrupted,
because of sequestration. When you get almost a $200 million
bill, which was what sequestration was for the Coast Guard, the
only place you can take it out of is discretionary spending,
and discretionary spending generally equates to operational
hours, whether it is flight hours, boat hours, or ship days,
and the only place that we could squeeze it a little bit was in
drug interdiction and migrant interdiction.
Mr. O'Rourke. In terms of measuring the outcomes of those
reduced resources and reduced interdictions, are you able to
track what that means in terms of availability of those drugs
on the streets in the United States or the number of, and I
don't know how you'd measure this, but the migrants who are
able to get through because of lack of resources? In other
words, do we know the outcome, the effect of this?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir. For drugs, it is a little
complicated, but I can understand it, so it is not that
complicated. One of my jobs is I serve as the chairman of the
interdiction committee that works for the Office of National
Drug Control Policy. We coordinate between DEA, Justice,
Department of Defense, and others, we coordinate activities and
share information. Part of it is a consolidated drug database.
We have a good idea on how much cocaine is produced in
South America, we also have a good idea on how much is consumed
on the streets of America, and we can judge that generally by
how the price is going up, price is going down, and there are
things that provide analysis to tell that.
There are about 800 metric tons produced in South America,
there are about 400 tons that are consumed in the United
States. On an average year, the Coast Guard interdicts,
disrupts about 120 metric tons in the transit zone between
South America into Central America. That is where you pick up
the big loads.
The entire rest of the United States Federal, State, and
local law enforcement agencies throughout millions of people
interdict, seize about 40 metric tons countrywide, because they
are in smaller loads when they come across, more difficult to
find.
So that is why I feel so strongly about keeping our ships
forward-deployed in the transit zones, so that we can interdict
4, 5, 6 metric tons at a time to keep them off the streets as
they get here.
Plus, it is not just our streets. It is a destabilizing
effect in Mexico and Central America that the transit of the
drugs creates as well. Money and weapons going south to
destabilize drugs coming north, it is a cycle that we have to
break.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Admiral.
Those numbers of how much is being consumed in the streets
of America are really distressing. I have never heard that
number before. That is mind-boggling.
At this time the Chairwoman now recognizes the gentlelady
from Hawaii, Ms. Gabbard.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Sir, like my colleagues, I just want to say thank you so
much for your commitment to service, your dedication to duty,
and your leadership for Coasties everywhere.
Admiral Papp. Thank you.
Ms. Gabbard. I had a chance to serve on my second
deployment with some security forces in the Coast Guard who
were based at the Kuwait naval base, and prior to that
deployment, I had no idea that there were Coasties serving in
the Middle East providing support to those missions, so I
learned a lot from that perspective, as I have now in my
interactions with the District 14 folks covering the Pacific,
and just really appreciate all that the Coast Guard does.
In your written testimony, you specifically mentioned the
renewed National focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Most people
don't realize how large that space really is and the Coast
Guard's central role in providing security there. Fourteenth
District, as you know, is the Coast Guard's largest area of
responsibility, covering 12.2 million square miles of land and
sea. I am wondering if you can speak to what you see coming
around the corner within this area, within the region, the
Asia-Pacific region, from a threat perspective, what should we
be anticipating from a homeland security viewpoint, and are we
prepared from a resource perspective?
Admiral Papp. I think in the Pacific-Asia region, the three
things I see are drugs, migrants, and fisheries. Particularly
our trust territories, let's go with fisheries, that 4.5
million-square-mile exclusive economic zone, a great deal of
that is in the Pacific surrounding the Hawaiian islands, the
trust territories, the islands, Guam, and others, and we do not
have enough resources to keep a persistent presence to protect
our fisheries. There are many incursions that are going on, and
there are also partner countries out there that don't have much
capacity as well.
We try to mitigate that. Actually the United States Navy
has been very helpful. We have been putting law enforcement
detachments on Navy ships that are transiting the area. Admiral
Locklear has been very good in terms--and he has got a great
relationship with our Coast Guard, in terms of putting a few
extra days in for his Navy ships so that we can make passes
through some of the areas out there where we want to protect
our fishing and the migratory stocks that are out there.
So that has been a good program and helps us out, but I
would clearly like to have more Coast Guard cutters out there
and the time to be able to spend in those areas.
Those 800 metric tons of drugs, there is a big market in
Australia right now, and I wouldn't be surprised if we start
seeing--we have seen vessels being interdicted near Australia
with multi-ton loads of cocaine.
Hawaii is not inconceivable. There could be drugs going
into Hawaii as well. It is sort of a transit now back out
across the Pacific that we are concerned about.
We have the precursors for methamphetamines that are
produced in Asia that come across the Pacific generally going
to south--to Central America for processing, but ultimately
come across our borders, so we are working with partner nations
to try and identify those cargoes before they get to our
hemisphere.
Migrants: We are always concerned. Right now Australia, in
fact, I consulted with Australia because they have such a huge
illegal migration problem there, and they are looking at some
of the practices that the United States Coast Guard uses in the
Caribbean. It is a little bit different of a challenge for
them. But we also look, there are oftentimes migrant vessels
that will come across the North Pacific towards Canada or the
West Coast of the United States that we have to be concerned
about as well.
Ms. Gabbard. I have a brother who lives in Australia and
was there towards the end of last year and had a chance to meet
with the Australian Navy Fleet Commander, and he spoke very
highly of the partnership and the lessons learned that they are
gaining from our Coast Guard here.
You mentioned that you don't have enough cutters for
District 14. I understand that District 14 is expected to get
two National Security Cutters that will replace some of the
aging cutters that have basically been extended beyond their
designed service life. You know, I saw one of the cutters that
was in dry dock at Pearl Harbor.
It is great that we have that asset there. But clearly when
you get to that point the cost of continuing to refurbish these
cutters beyond what they were designed for really doesn't make
sense when it extends beyond the cost of bringing in a new
cutter. I'm wondering when you expect these cutters to be put
into service in Hawaii.
Admiral Papp. The two National Security Cutters, we made
that porting plan I think it was 2 years ago. I will get you
the exact numbers for the record, but I think it is National
Security Cutters Nos. 6 and 7 are going to Honolulu.
Given the production schedule, I would estimate that is
probably going to be at least 4 or 5 years from now because No.
5 is under construction. I think they are starting on No. 6 and
so it will be a couple years from now and we will keep a
presence there, of course, until the new ships arrive if we
have got enough room in the budget.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentlelady very much.
I thank all the Members of the committee. If the committee
Members, if anybody has additional questions, we will ask that
the Commandant would respond to those in writing, if they ask.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(e), the hearing record will be
held--yes, Ranking Member.
Ms. Jackson Lee. First of all, let me indicate that I have
a Cabinet officer that I had to speak to in just a moment.
But I want to thank the Commandant and I wanted to make
sure that in his response would he share with me my answer to
the questions on the TWIC card.
Admiral Papp. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I appreciate very much.
I know there were a lot of questions, so I am very
interested in that and very interested in your counsel on how
we can make that more efficient and more effective.
I think in particular, if I may, Madam Chairwoman, just
read this question too: Should this Government-centric premise
to the TWIC card be revisited? That was based upon using this
approach to port security credentialing in which DHS is
responsible for enrollment, card issuance, and security vetting
for TWIC; is that the best option?
Then, what needs to be done to ensure the TWIC program
delivers the security benefits Congress envisioned while not
unduly burdening workers or disrupting our ports? Also you
might comment on the Coast Guard role.
I thank you for that.
Admiral Papp. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman.
Mrs. Miller. Certainly. I thank the gentlelady for those
questions.
Again I am sure the Commandant will respond to those to the
committee and will get the answers to you.
Pursuant to the Committee Rule 7(e), the hearing record
will be held open for 10 days.
Again, Admiral, we just want to thank you so sincerely for
your many, many years of service to the Nation and look forward
to working with you in the future as well.
Good luck to your wife. I didn't realize she was going to
be the sponsor of the Hamilton. That is terrific. We appreciate
it. You have been a great advocate for the Coast Guard, and I
think as you can see from this committee Coast Guard had some
very, very deep wells of goodwill toward the Coast Guard and
the men and women in the service and what they do for our
Nation.
We thank you very much.
Admiral Papp. Thank you, ma'am. It has been an honor.
Mrs. Miller. With that, without objection, the committee
stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions From Honorable Steven M. Palazzo for Robert J. Papp
Question 1. What is the strategy for modernizing and recapitalizing
the USCG air fleet while minimizing the impact on the USCG budget, and
how does the Avionics 1 Upgrade (A1U) upgrade program fit into that
strategy?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. How does the USCG plan to cover a multi-year
operational gap from the time the HC-130Hs are transferred to the USFS
to the time the first fully-missionized C27J reaches initial
operational capability?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. When will the USCG implement the next phase of A1U
upgrades to the HC-130H airframes?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. What is the acquisition plan for the HC-130J?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. How would any future acquisition of any additional HC-
130 J models impact the acquisition of additional National Security
Cutters in the fleet?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6. In 2013, the Commandant testified that the Avionics 1
Upgrade (A1U) installations on HC-130H aircraft enhanced the capability
of the HC-130H fleet by replacing aging/obsolete equipment, and
updating avionics to comply with Communications Navigation
Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM).\1\ Considering the
length of time (an estimated 4 years) for the C27J to be fully mission-
ready, is the A1U program still front-and-center of your near-term air
asset recapitalization plan?
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\1\ Written testimony of U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Robert
Papp, Jr. for a House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation hearing titled
``The President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Request for Coast Guard and
Maritime Transportation Programs'' Release Date: April 16, 2013. 2167
Rayburn House Office Building.
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Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7. Is acquiring HC-130Js in the next 5 to 10 years
economically feasible in light of the demands on the USCG budget for
surface assets such as the National Security Cutter, Fast Response
Cutter, Offshore Patrol Cutter, and Polar Icebreaker?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. Further considering that the A1U program is a key part
of the USCGs plan to ``Build Essential Coast Guard Capability for the
Nation'', does the USCG plan to now, or in the near future cancel or
reduce the A1U program?\2\
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\2\ U.S. Coast Guard Fact Sheet--Fiscal Year 2014 President's
Budget. April 10, 2013.
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Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 9. How can Mississippi support the mission of the USCG air
fleet?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.