respond to all things in the maritime to maine that may potentially pose a threat to the united states according to the department of homeland security eighty five percent of americans live within one hundred miles of the coast and the economic activities and jobs located in coastal areas comprise nearly half of the nation's gross domestic product many critical natural resources are also located on or near our nation's ninety five thousand miles of coastline including more than three hundred sixty ports which significant steps have been taken since nine eleven to identify and mitigate some of these threats most commercial vessels and fine recreational vessels coming into the united states are now required to notify the coast guard of destination at least ninety six hours prior to their arrival commercial vessels are also required to submit to the coast guard significant amounts of data on their vessels including cargo type registry and updates on course and heading at frequent intervals using two different electronic tracking systems however one of the elements in the maritime the main that is now considered to be among the most significant threats is a presence a megan's of small boats most of which are recreational pleasure cra responding to the perceived threats associated with small boats is now a key focus a maritime security initiatives being undertaken by the coastguard and d h s and april two thousand and eight a department homeland security released its small vessel security strategy which is intended to address the risks that a small vessel might be used to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction  the united states or be used in some other type of terror attack the strategy lays out four broad goals including the following using a layered approach  to hands security and safety developing strong partnerships with the small vessel community leveraging technology to enhance the ability to detect and protect and when necessary intraday small vessels and enhancing cooperation between federal officials and state local tribal and private sector authorities for each go the small vessel security identifies a number of specific object is intended to support each event of the goal and september of this year the department of homeland security's inspector general issued a critical assessment of the small vessel details on associated costs and human capital needs accountability and oversight frameworks and image implementation guidance for state local and private sector partners that said i think the key is not necessarily whether the april two thousand and eight strategy can counter the small build threat examine this issue more broadly we need to understand what is the true nature of the small boat threat and whether any strategy can effectively counter this threat given the megan of small boats that move in very loosely regulated fashion across the waterways in plain view of countless pieces of sensitive infrastructure most small vessels are not subject to the tracking requirements applied to larger vessels and while vessels with mechanical come a potion systems are required to register with the satan display a number on their owners the states have varying registration requirements and not insure the consistency of their data and have not even ensured that all state issued identification numbers are unique i also note that the coast guard was instructed by chapter one twenty three of title forty six to develop national vessel identify action system capability capable of making available to law enforcement officials information on the ownership and registration of state registered small boats the coast guard ha concluded agreements with twenty five states the district of columbia and a number of territories to collect such data but half of the states are not providing any data on registered  vessels if that's the vet the federal government and the state are not even able to draw on all of the data that already exists on small vessels despite the fact that all of the data that is available on creating boating licenses similar to motor vehicle driver's license i've had proposed creating and mandating the use of new expanded systems to track small vessels that said it is not all clear from the small vessel security strategy and from the assessments of ongoing maritime domain awareness efforts developed by groups such as the g of commercial vessels generates or that would be generated through the tracking of small vessels is even manageable using available information technology systems additionally some have criticize that it would be difficult if not impossible to interdict a determined small boat attack that is already underway given that available response time might be measured in seconds the d vessel security strategy does highlight the importance of the development of partnerships between the federal government and the small boating community particularly as those who recreate on the water on a regular bases are far more likely than federal officials to be able to quickly identify boats out of place and situations that may present danger was suspicious activity from recreational boaters today's hearing is intended to provide an overview of the status of karen man time domain awareness efforts particularly regarding the small boat threat you've articulated many the important things to be considered and i think the coast guard operates a broad array of systems and sensors to gather data to enhance the services awareness of activities in  domain the systems are used to direct the coast guard operations across mission areas even though each individual system was originally developed to address a narrow range of mission needs and at a time when coast guard assets and personnel are stretched to a critical limit maritime domain awareness programs act as a critical force multiplier but only if information is integrated into distributed for action at all levels of the coast i am concerned that the coast guard lacks the resources and infrastructure to sufficiently tie these disparate systems into one common operating picture earlier this year coast guard personnel were unable to access information from the vessel monitoring system to us assist in the location of a fifteen fishing vessel which was the focus of a search and rescue mission the subcommittee has also examined the lack of standardization  procedures governing the use of maritime domain awareness information across coast guard districts and units i support the coast guard's efforts to construct a comprehensive common operational picture but we need to examine whether the service has the capabilities to operate a robust system further i'm concerned by the apparent lack of strategy to develop systems best suited to provide the types of information needed for enhanced maritime domain awareness the coast guard has proposed to require fishing vessels that carry automatic identification system transponders to provide position data this would be in addition to the vessel monitoring system thus fishing vessels are already required to carry which provides very similar information other vessels are hard to carry different transponders to meet the needs of long range identification and tracking system in addition to a i asked transponders yet i do not know if the coast guard has ever looked into the systems in totality to determine whether they are providing the data necessary to assist in all coastguard mission areas several systems provide duplicative information and all of the data streams were designed for various and often unrelated mission specific goals would be interested to hear our witnesses opinions on whether all of these programs are needed and how we can best focus future and the efforts to provide the most useful information and intelligence maritime domain awareness is a critical tool to maximize the coastguards capabilities to safeguard american interest in u s waters on the high seas but we need to balance the need to obtain information with the impacts that system imposes on the flow of commerce through us ports we also need to continually oversee this program as it matures to ensure we are making the best investment for the taxpayers once again  thank you and good afternoon mr chairman ranking member lo bianco and distinguished members of the committee i'm very pleased to be here this afternoon to update you on the coast guard's efforts to leverage maritime domain awareness and as this committee is well aware m d a is critical to the coast missions of ensuring safety security and efficiency of our nation's maritime activities and to protecting our fragile maritime environment so i thank this committee for placing emphasis on this very important topic the sea has always been a not a source of great opportunity and danger yet our lack of understanding of the sea and in particular what others are doing upon it has throughout history cost thousands of lives and and done great harm storms criminals hostile navies polluters terrorists all have caused untold damage to coastal nations and mariners while we have made great strides in predicting and mitigating the threats associated with weather we have yet to make equal progress in seeing and understanding other maritime threats and then sharing the resulting information with those who need it improving our awareness will create a safer transportation system a cleaner environment and a maritime space in which it is much more difficult to pursue malicious intent the coast guard is the lead federal agency for maritime transportation safety law enforcement and environmental stewardship and it has a broad set of responsibilities and authorities this gives us a unique leadership role in helping to coordinate maritime governance across a very broad set of government commercial and private stakeholders both domestically and internationally ingredient to a governance regime is maritime domain awareness through which we maintain an understanding of maritime space with all of its natural and manmade complexities m d a activities can be easily characterized as  to see to understand and then to share information as displayed overhead on the graphic for an organization with as broad a set of responsibilities as the coast guard a good understanding of what is going on in our ports and waterways coastal approaches and far out to sea as a central to effective and efficient mission performance whether it's pursuing polluters so i believe illegally discharged into the environment protecting dwindling fish stocks intercepting drug smugglers human traffickers or potential terrorists we must first know where they are our ultimate goal is to prevent harm to the public and the environment maritime domain awareness optimizes our mission effectiveness and it does so by providing transparency when people know we are looking it keeps them honest just as in the case of polluters improves our awareness of what is occurring so that we can better target our limited resources to greater effect especially in time critical intervention and response missions and most importantly greater awareness can often lead us in to support a looming threat and intervene early this is true regardless of the nature of the threat just a few weeks ago when severe weather was closing in on new england coastguard used data from noah's vessel monitoring system to seek out and warn fishing vessels which were operating offshore and at high risk and urged them to seek shelter through through awareness and information sharing lives were saved even though no rescues were recorded the coast guard has been a leader and advocating for and coordinating efforts among myriad maritime stakeholders to improve m d a and i stress the word coordinating because there is no single solution nor can m d a be the effort of a single agency or even a single government rather improved awareness must be developed across the broad maritime community with a wide range of participants while much remains to be done we have also accomplished much in the last several years we've improved sensors on our aircraft which have allowed us to detect smugglers who previously would have gone undetected our participation in the intelligence community and our relationships with other governments has enabled us to identify and interest potential threats for at sea we have improved information sharing and coordination at the national level and also in our ports partial implementation of the nationwide automatic identification system has improved overall understanding of maritime activity contributed to safe navigation assisted in search and rescue and improved our ability to investigate accidents and we played a leading role in bringing on line the international long range identification and tracking system for l r i t this system will give us visibility on major commercial vessels that are within one thousand miles of any u s coast and will allow us to track u flagged vessels worldwide this latter feature was required ahead of schedule for u s flagged vessels operating off the horn of africa where we continue to be concerned about the risks of piracy now enables the coast guard to monitor their presence in the region and to share that information with deity and with merit nevertheless we recognize that more needs to be done the policy and the procedural changes associated with information sharing are significant we have found that the relationships for and between the elements of our own government and with other friendly governments and with the private sector remain the most important factor in a neighboring sharing of existing sensor information and available data thank you again mr chairman for the opportunity to be here today and i'd be happy to take your questions thank you very much everyone in nineteen eighty eight congress required the coast guard to establish a vessel identification system which was to be basically a compilation of all boating registration numbers in ownership information gathered by the state using the system a coast guard security drole good obtaining ownership information for a vessel from the vessels twenty five states five territories in the district of columbia have signed agreements with the coast guard under which they will provide data on registered vehicles vessels rather database let me ask you this are all of the states that have signed agreements to be just made in a vessel identification system providing all of their available data on registered vehicles or are they party correct the system is in place it is a coast guard managed program we do have a contractor that does that on our behalf there are twenty five states as you mentioned five territories and the district of columbia currently participating  the information that is shared is registration information ownership information associated with with each individual there are a number of contractor who was there let me check on the identity of the contractor and see if i have that here and get it out that is that do you know whether that is something that is put out to bid or what i mean hasn't worked so i don't have that contractor identity with me presently so i'd like what could be shared and who would have access to it so for example a bank may seek to get access to that information because of loan purposes or there may be tax issues involved and for that reason some of the states are concerned because of their own internal legislation which addresses privacy concerns so they have been unwilling to say enter into an agreement with us to share that information or enter it into our database so i that sense see the legislation is almost is to open if it were to be a little bit more restricted limited only to law enforcement or to security purposes some additional states may be more willing to participate that happens when we do that it happen i mean when i was living in it and limiting it to law enforcement the way the my understanding the way the statute is structured it is broader than that so i think that would require a legislative change if we wanted to do limited cost considerations i've also been cited because there is some cost in terms of just setting up the mechanisms by which the information can be shared we operate the system at no cost to the states  generally what the states do is a provide data on a monthly basis to update the database and then any state that provides data has the ability to get data from any other state as participating in the system to achieve the effect you describe so that a law enforcement officer and and once they can access registration data from another state so right now we get it from twenty five states and so we've got basically half of the country that does not provide it that's correct and what kind of efforts are being made to try to do the other twenty five because that's yes a lot of folks and i would imagine if you've got these breaks in the information that is you've got one jurisdiction and then you get in and they may be close to each other or jason one giving information the other not and somebody is trying to do something that  primarily through the national association of state boating law administrator to work with the individual state governments and encourage them to enter into an agreement with us and there is an agreement between the coast guard in each individual state memorandum of agreement that we sign and so we've we've worked with them and but essentially this is the feedback we've received we're continuing to make that outreach but we're running into some brick walls in some cases  do you can you provide us with a list of the states yes sir i can i can provide that to you for the record you know whether maryland is one of the states i believe maryland is participating state  the small vessel security strategy suggests the benefits and costs of legislative and regulatory options pertaining to enhance registration and reporting on small data vessels and what are the enhanced registration and reporting what is a requirement that should be considered for small vessels that was you need additional information i don't believe there's a requirement for enhanced registration information because the registration system actually is operated it says sensing the benefits and costs of legislative and regulatory options this is a fall pertaining to enhance registration and reporting  record with the states and the background on that system i can provide you additional information on those lines as well do you see that having half of the states not cooperating as a problem yes sir it represents a  gap in our in our awareness of what is occurring on the water in our ability to identify vessels on the water that may be involved and activity that could be questionable and have you have you do you know of situations where when you because you did not have the cooperation of the state it caused problems for the coast guard i mean you have any specific cases that you know of i'm sure you must've talk to some folks before you came in t day to kind of figure out the most obvious problems that you might be confronted with the i don't have a specific case where it's been led to a particular law enforcement problem other than to say that there are situations where it's difficult to run numbers by a state law enforcement officer for an out of state vessel there's also no federal requirement for the operator of the vessel to have a license as you mentioned or even a form of identification so that it can be become very problematic in a law enforcement situation to establish the identity of an individual on the water what would you it something that congress can do to help you out there i think maybe taking a look at that legislation on the information sharing through the vessel identification system would be very helpful and we would be very interested in working with your staff and maybe offering some language which allow beyond the thank you mr chairman i'd like to yield my time to mr young  thank you thank you mr chairman thank you mr robey on the questions are really questions about alaska admiral the coast guard is currently implementing rescue twenty one program in the lower forty eight this improves system the radio receivers can better determine the location of vessel making the emergency calls this reduces the number of hoax calls and greatly reduces time spent searching for rather than rescuing vessels or mariners in distress obviously given that this is that are needed to be covered in alaska waters any reduction in the time spent searching prior to beginning rescue work we greatly improve now what is the timeline for the coast guard plan to get rescue twenty one in operation lascaux alaska as you know poses some unique challenges in terms of geography weather and even the remoteness of many of the locations where we envision placing rescue twenty one towers the remoteness makes it more difficult year process it will be several years before rescue twenty one is fully established in alaska we will concentrate initially in the in the port areas the major port areas the staff has identified over fifty sites where rescued twenty one hours would need to be established but again this is a this is a multi year process i would also add sir that coast guard is very aware of the unique hazards and operating off of last four for mariners and it's also very much not only in their interest but in the coast guard's interest too to have a system in place that that improves our ability to identify a vessel in distress and its location as rapidly as possible and to get our assets on scene as rapidly as possible so we share that interest in making it happen quickly i'd add when i hope we pursue this more rapidly because there is a difference in distances and blindsight works maybe in the lower forty eight it is not practical in alaska so we're going to have to come up with better a better mousetrap to make sure it works because this is crucially important that we do have hopes calls we do have things that occur that  those are truly a nature's i o p do that second question as you know there's currently virgin no maritime domain awareness infrastructure and they already this point was highlighted in the arctic council's arctic marine shipping assessment that was released earlier this year and the house has pass requirement of the use of alaska state pilots of vessels working in the u s arctic provide an additional layer of protection for the arctic environment and the mariners working there so i'd like to get back to you on the record for that when i think there are there are some issues the spot but i'm quite interested in this issue and i'm going cross hairs with some people that are going to be working up there but i do believe by the additional bite of these would be good for the safety of the area and it's relatively inexpensive and the state would also be responsible then a pledge that was to occur whereby and if they're not the companies may be responsible that doesn't relieve the the possibility of an accident the rationale for bigger more expensive naval security cutters was that the patrol this expanded ranges for great concerns brilliancy professionals and force one against foreign fishing intrusions search and rescue and environmental protection another part of the coast guard visionary this expanded coverage is important to drug  that coast guard has wisely decided it is lacks the resource to develop his own new avi system but is looking at a land and ship base being developed by other entities what is the status of the coast guard u a b but work program centrally t depends on the operation of a data center because we were concerned that the international data exchange would not be operational on a roll into effect and the coast guard agreed to set that up and operating that exchange during this year and next year what plans are in place for the operation of the data center after the end of two thousand and ten there are a number of potential  operators of another i t data x exchange as opposed to data center the international data exchange which is the centrally the router which communicates between all of the data centers we're doing that in the u s is doing at until the end of tw eleven it's not determined yet who will take that over from last week we agreed to do that on an interim basis and not to do that indefinitely we will continue to operate our own data center which is where we collect information on u s flagged ships and we will do that into the future that would be operated by the coast guard it's physically located in martinsburg west virginia and that's that's where we collect the data on us ships but that was the agreement we gave to the international community that we would do it at least till then i do i'm personally aware of at least one other entity that is interested in and approaching imo the international maritime organization as a as a successor to our effort but that has not yet been approved yet accepted by the international community it's still in the formation phase are all the signator participate in a data center and have their ships equipped to provide the data that compares to about one hundred sixty countries that are part of the international maritime organization so roughly half of the countries  the good news is that most of the major flag states in the world are in that seventy that are already complying so the vast majority of the world's tonnage we anticipate will be in compliance with with this requirement so vast majority  a sorry a little bit of a term of art basically the numbers of ships that are operating in the world commercially in international service the vast majority of them we especially those i'd call in the united states we expect will be in has the coast guard given any baseline guidance to captains of the ports on how to panel vessels not in compliance there was guidance issued earlier this year i was interim guidance during the pre enforcement phase as as you probably know sir the the actual mandatory compliance date will commence at the end of this month the end of december and so january first we are in an enforcement mode we are currently developing follow on guidance on what to do in various situations when a ship neither does not comply or their flag state does not comply and we do have various enforcement options i had a vision at this point that we will we will have a phased  admiral united states in maritime community need a backup navigation system in addition to g p s in your view sir that that is a question that is actively being pursued at the department of homeland security the question of a backup for g p s they are currently pulling all of the users of position navigation and timing information to gather that and then to make that assessment so that is that is eal ran being considered for that that has been mentioned as a possible backup for g p s should it be determined that a backup is needed but sir they all do feed the common operating picture and there is value in various systems even though they were designed for different purposes all going into a single common operating picture and you have layers of information where data can be correlated and awareness standpoint if something doesn't add up and an anomaly exists you now have a trigger point two to look a little bit deeper so there is value to do all of these and one critical difference is that v m s only applies to a very small percentage of the total number of fishing vessels less than ten percent of fishing vessels are required to use the v m s system it's really driven by regional fisheries management plans closed fishing areas and so forth so it's a very small percentage of the population another example is rushing twenty one we're spending millions  stall rescue twenty one and it's proved to be extremely valuable tool for search and rescue but i understand it is not being used to support other missions is the coast guard looking for ways to use rescue twenty one to support other missions that possibly could integrated into a common operational picture capabilities that are there and the coast guard has proposed to expand the carriage requirements to fishing vessels and other small vessels if this mandate were put in place can you give us an idea of what the cost per small vessels and we do have a notice of proposed rule making which will expand the carriage requirements on commercial small vessels and by that i mean that are less than three hundred times there is no requirement  contemplated that would apply for recreational vessels when the requirements are pushed to smaller commercial vessels yes there is a large number of vessels that will be affected probably in the neighborhood of seventeen thousand vessels seventy thousand of them are fishing vessels there's also small passenger vessels telling vessels and so forth they would be captured by that there is the potential to many of these vessels they won't need to do that and just i mean as you mentioned the thousands and thousands of additional ships that come into this is the coast guard has have a system in place to manage process th huge increase in information can you can you deal with it that information does go into the cop and what we are also building out right now is a system called watch keeper which will be designed to be present in all of our coast guard sectors it's being evaluated right now in charleston at the integrated operation center there but its purpose is to synthesize all of this information and to make use  of tools that can help differentiate between the all the information to pick out the things that you're looking for so it has it has that ability to sort to analyze and share thank you mr chairman thank you m thank you thank you mr chairman i'd like to address the great lakes issue as you know we have many small vessels on the great lakes and the state of michigan alone has over nine hundred thousand registered boats of various  d the ability to help identify the location of a vessel on a search and rescue case you know is also a potential benefit so that there are there are ancillary benefits to the system yes sir thank you very much ammo in his report entitled d h has a strategy and plans to counter small vessel threats need improvement to d h itself as an inspector general is criticizing the april two thousand and eight small that's a security strategy stating that among other things the strategy does not address priorities milestones performance measures progress indicate a strategic loss in human capital needs does need further development but these things can be addressed and follow on implementation of the security strategy and from a component perspective as we look at the items that are contained in  the plan that pertain to us we recognize we need to do a very detailed look at how we will pursue this the funding mechanisms and so forth and whatever already might be needed so yes much more analysis of the program so that was really going to be after the strategy was put in place then we'd look at individual ways to achieve the strategy and then and then make that benefit analysis at that point so  and security efforts in what is a city resources that the state and local governments are lacking i can't speak to a specific assessment of where the assets and resources are but i can tell you that we have a very security and law enforcement purposes so that we can enter we can be interoperable so we would know for example the state of maryland law enforcement about what its capabilities are what the training of the officers on board are and how we can integrate them into a so much for having mr chairman ranking member low beyond i appreciate being here on behalf of our six hundred thousand boat owners members for many boating is the quintessential expression of the freedoms we enjoy in this nation i want to clarify at the start that the average vote in this country is sixteen feet long and its part in someone's driveway seventy five percent of the nation's boat owners have an annual household income of one hundred thousand dollars or less there are an estimated twelve point six million registered boats in the country for the most part boats less than sixteen feet without engines do not have to be registered at the state level reaching these boats with any new federal requirement would be extremely difficult and expensive the boating industry is having a very hard time weathering the current economic storm this industry has historically supported three hundred thirty seven thousand jobs and generated thirty seven point five billion dollars in annual retail sales national marine manufacturers association estimates that over fifty percent of the people employed in u s marine manufacturing and sales have temporarily or permanently lost their jobs but u s is aware of the unique challenges facing the coast guard with regard to the variety and number of vessels on our nation's waterways we understand there is a tenuous balance between security and freedom of navigation my comments today are focused on the potential future requirement of class b recreational boats but us is strongly opposed to this for the following reasons class b systems would require constant and reliable electric power on the boat these systems could be turned on and off at will by either a good guy or a bad guy and it could also be turned off by intermittent power issues anyone that's been on a boat and struggle to own a boat that has running lights that work all the time will understand what i mean by that there are millions of small boats the don't have electrical systems at all they be incapable of operating an area and just the installation of an a on a boat would not provide a high level of assurance that that equipment actually works after you install it data transmitted  unit can be deliberately spoofed terrorist intent on doing something bad on the waterfront would have no problem spoofing a transponder forcing it to report erroneous positions speeds or course over ground because  units rely on accurate data from g p s jamming g p s signals would be a spectacular way to incapacitate entire harbors signals in one thousand or two thousand and eight report from the u k and ireland shows that  one and a half watt g p s moving transmitter which is about the same size as a shoe box including the battery could make every in an area report totally inaccurate data in high traffic areas the more transponders there are the less effective the tool can be we believe that adding millions of recreational boats to the nation's i s system would overwhelm the coast guard's ability to effectively monitor the entire system even with a class b a unit on board terrorists on small craft would have plenty of time to successfully achieve an attack from a boat class the a f units transmit every thirty seconds and a small boat that's capable of thirty knots can move fifteen hundred feet in thirty seconds between those transmissions class and the necessary antenna cost six hundred dollars for the equipment to answer your questions or plus installation fees and if a requirement came down to registered boats even half the registered boats in this country say six million the economic impact of that could easily reach three point six billion dollars which is a significant amount for this community we continue to support coastguards america's waterway watch program which relies on the neighborhood watch concept in our opinion this type of program is more likely to succeed for two reasons it treats voters as part of the solution rather than part of the problem and it relies on voters to know what doesn't look right on the water we support giving a w w more sturdy legs in terms of infrastructure and funding and we recommend an analysis conducted to ensure that evolves to include the lessons learned from our neighborhood watch groups but us is concerned that any potential future requirement for class b and recreational boats would be window dressing for a potential homeland security problem that will not be reduced despite the outlay of billions of dollars by our country's boaters on behalf of our six hundred thousand members owning more than one million votes but us opposes any future requirement for  on recreational boats we do appreciate the opportunity to be here and would be happy to take your questions thank you very much tell me tell me about the us but us is the country's largest association of recreational boat owners we have about six hundred thousand members around this country about thirty thousand of those are in maryland and another thirty thousand in new jersey and the study suggested the idea of creating a  system of licensing for recreational boaters and somewhat similar to the system used for drivers what is your reaction to that because the coast guard has been proposing that for several years we've also heard that from admiral allen we have no problem if the coast guard wants to be able to identify who is operating a boat with current identification cards those for example th accept a driver's license a passport would be fine we have significant concerns over any additional new licensing system so when it comes to numbers engines have to be registered at the state level so what are you saying sir the possibility of registering smaller craft yes the in terms of today's discussions i wonder what registration of small known or non motorized craft canoes and kayaks for example would do for homeland security i'm not sure that putting a number on a windsurfer does homeland security much good that being said when it comes to whether small boats should be registered at the state level there are definitely some pros to that because those people are using launch ramps rescue services parking lots that the right now the motor boat owners are paying for through wall abro and trust fund funds so that right now the the small non motorized craft are not putting into the fund but they are receiving services from it and certainly they want to be rescued just along along with everyone else understand why they were one whopper ation from all the stations how do you feel about that well we certainly believe that coast guard should have access to that state registration data and we are we share your concern that only about half the states are participating and my understanding is that's about half the registered boats in the country are now known to the coast guard through that does system my understanding from working with the coast guard on this topic and working through the boating safety advisory council is that the states are some of the states that are slower to react to this request by the federal government it is due to privacy concerns and perhaps their own state privacy laws prohibiting them from sharing personal data with with other agencies but we certainly understand the coast guard needs that data now do you or do you to vote yes take up i take it that you will take official positions can get to get these other twenty five states we have an organization as large enjoys that sounds i mean i know i don't know whether you just speaking for yourself on this particular point but that is at least sympathetic to the problems with the coast guard is experiencing with regard to getting the other twenty five states and i'm just wondering if you all have taken any kind of official position your organization with regard to that issue you follow me yes or ok on this particular issue we have not we have not taken a position on this but as we also haven't been asked to i guess i haven't job every day and every night and frankly come and rescue us no matter what the weather is whenever we need them they are an amazing service and we certainly want to support them on this particular issue we have supported the coast guard and their requests for of is informally through our participation on on the national boating safety advisory council of coast guard on which i said that we have taken and informal position of support we have not seen the opportunity to have a formal position of the party stand in do you do you can you see a way i'm sure it's an issue that has come up before apparently the coastguard in terms of joining the biz system and then there are some states in my my head california is one of them who says no we've got state wide privacy laws we're not going to disclose name and address type information about individual citizens and we're not sharing it with you and and i i don't know how to break through that brick wall if there's something that certainly that the boat owners could do in the boat owners association in the united states could do to help the coast guard we stand ready to do  method that mariners have used and anglers have used to to find where they're going many of our members have historically been very concerned about losing their ranch many of our members have evolved to  significant concern to us organizationally as well as to many of our members and so with the with the thought that we're going away based on based on things we've heard today and we know are happening we do have concerns about leaving our boat owners as well as commercial fishermen and other mariners with foley g p s capability that having been said would you deal of interest within our membership in terms of that backup system i can't speak to exactly how many of our members are using that and relying on and would like to use a loran continue to use  interest you talked a little bit about being one of the ideas you and your organization could propose that would help the general public in hand safety and security in coastal waters the background document pointed out suggests that ten percent of the nation's voters are aware of america's waterway watch or perhaps that they've been exposed to it through their registration letters they get in the mail boat us has publicized america's waterway watch on numerous different venues web sites posted the animals video on our website and editorial even we will continue to do that i think that we need to do more diverse education of the voters about how to tap a w w what to look for i'm not sure the average voter is aware that they have this opportunity to report and if they if they see something strange where to go to in terms of other capabilities with coast guard one of the things that has has come to my face in the last year or so is the coast guard does not currently in a national can correct me if i'm wrong i don't think the coast guard has the ability to require you as they board your boat to produce an identification card they can they can ask nicely and they can imply that it's that it's a law but if you said no i'm not sure that there's a consequence to that from where we sit and when the homeland security threat that we are aware of we certainly understand that law enforcement agencies would want to identify that boat owner as they board and ask who are you sir and could you please produce a piece of identification to show us who you are we certainly back that need as long as it is a t s a already in existence a type identification whether it's a driver's license or passport or something already in existence we do not support the idea of an additional form of identification just for boaters but perhaps that's something that would help the coast guard in this when the this is what awaits the watch program you said that it might be helpful for them to know what they are watching for and it makes a answers on that first the coast guard has had america's waterway watch for several years and forgive me i don't i don't have the details on that but and i think a fabulous effort my concern about a w w is that it's been a bit of a stepchild within coast guard in terms of staffing and funding and creation of a significant program they've done all they can with what they've been given for america's waterway watch as as the boating community is resting heavily on america's waterway watch working when we need it to work as is the entire nation in terms of the water front threat to homeland security and so i'd like to make sure that coast guard has the resources that it needs to to prop up that infrastructure make sure that if a voter calls that that call is processed the way it's supposed to be process that we get the bad guy in time that the whole system is working and i think the done a tremendous job of working with what they've been given i question whether they've been given enough and actually in the house version of the reauthorization bill that has moved forward there is a stronger provision for a w w so they have they have printed grocers they've got information on the web they have produced the information on here's what to look for from the boat u s perspective we have advertised that there is  america's waterway watch here's the phone number you call if you see something suspicious and we've given general information about what to what to look for but rather than reinvent that we have referred people to the coastguardsman printed and web materials so  i think it's two pronged for the from the voting community we are we are looking to america's waterway watch to be highly successful and in a former life i was a volunteer coordinator i think there's a lot that can be done to bolster the volunteerism in this country and frankly the patriotism of our nation voters to help america's waterway watch be really successful when we need it to be so material do you all give out in other words you i mean say for example do you give your voters information as to how to get to how to contact the coast guard and i'm sure the coast guard probably has something too but i'm just trying to figure out you know what you all do with regard to what you put out to you and your constituency members to  circulations of voting magazines in the country we have written about a w w in the editorial of that you know on page three we've also had small articles about america's waterways watching it this is our number one way to reach all of our members we've also put it on our website which is open to the general boating public it's open to anyone it's not members only and we've put information and there of if you know someone is looking for it we've also put it we every other month we have a membership an e mail that goes out to about sixty eight percent of our members that we have e mails for and we've included in it in there and are there other organizations i mean like yours that compete against you i'm just curious not released are there there are many other organizations that represent other parts the marine industry for example national marine manufacturers association we have a representative here they represent the manufacturer we represent the consumer the boat owner and we work alongside squadron many other groups but but we do why'd range of services very similar to aaa and what they do for cars we try to do anything to have a better boating experience the  year risk register ations cycle and every two years ago is up and every other year goes down so it's it may be part of that one of the things we're seeing in the last several years is that people may have the boat in their driveway they may still own it hopefully they still insure it but they may not register it you know if they are cutting back and they're not going to go boating this year maybe they don't have that disposable income or time or gasoline might be more than four dollars a gallon like last summer they may not use it and so they may not register it and that would affect this number in ohio in particular i know their numbers their total number of registered boats in the last several years has remained fairly steady however the segment that is a powered boat has gone down substantially and the number of canoes and kayaks that they've registered has gone up ohio is one of those states that registers those those small amount powered boats and their philosophy or the thought process with that is that that is the part of boating that people can easily obtain if you want to boat that's an entry level boat you can buy it at wal mart you can keep it under the porch even if you don't have room for a trailer it's an easy way to get into boating and care of them which i found really pretty sad do you hear a lot of cases about those kind of cases i mean with regard to your members of i certainly saw a lot of press on this about six months ago and there was a new york times article that made a lot of waves on this topic we see abandoned boats particularly after big storm about like big hurricanes where people you know they go back to their their baby their boat and it's just demolished or they might not even be able to find it it's moved so much and so after after that kind of storm activity particularly the florida area there's a rather significant abandoned boat problem our members tend to be a little bit older they tend to be they've been in boating a while they have an average of one point eight votes each and they are not they've been a boating a long time they're not they're not abandoning their boats they're they're taking care of them or they're passing them to their kids they're selling them to the neighbors there the idea of proper disposal of your boat when you are done with it is the one that brought us is pushing you know this is not your  disposal of your boat when you are done with it should not become society's problem of recycling our trash and i thank you very much so that's what i was actually thank you and  we will however some additional questions for you but we really do appreciate your testimony hearing