this hearing is called to order and good morning everyone today we convene this hearing to receive a report issued by the foreman of homeland security's office of inspector general regarding the coastguards marine casualty investigation from a new legislative proposal made by the national transportation safety board to be the lead  emanation in august of last year when witnesses from the maritime industry testify regarding a number of troubling concerns they had about them on professional expertise among coast not only the loss or professional competence of marine inspectors and investigators it indicated that frequent transfers prevent marine safety personnel from developing technical or geographic expertise deletion of the const coble song but the san francisco bay grange in november two thousand and seven and the report developed by the department of homeland security's inspector general on the coastguards response to that and have demonstrated in a single event many of the challenges the coastguards marine safety program faces particularly in the casualty investigation mission which is the cornerstone have a clear and disturbing conclusions the coastguards marine counseling investigations program is and are both ended by qualified personnel in the boat and by boat investigation concluded at inappropriate levels and by any effective management of a substantial backlog i'm investigations meaning review and closure ladies and gentlemen this is simply unacceptable and we can do much better and we much just a look at one of these findings the lack of qualified personnel i know that this were not qualifying for the life of me i cannot figure out how we can avoid accidents from happening in the future and the very people who are investigating them mine are not qualified to do the investigation of the coast guard's marine safety program testified that he did not know how widespread the lack of qualifications among casualty investigators was we look forward to the testimony is that some of the challenges we will discuss today where dennis find more than ten years ago by the coast guard itself and even as far back as his seminal oversight as the united states coast guard one hundred eighty one issued during the night the ninety seventh congressional session in other words the coast guard challenges with the marine safety program far predated the service as assumption of a stand in responsibilities following nine eleven while these new responsibilities make finding balance among all missions that much more challenging we also make it much more important frankly as anyone who follows a subcommittee knows i find it to be a disservice to the american people when government  around the same issues year after year or in this case decade after decade the marines say the mission is a critical mission performed  the united states coast guard and it needs to be adequately to it needs to adequately serve the safety needs of the maritime industry while i appreciate the efforts said that commandant is taken to strengthen the program including the requests of two hundred seventy six new billets in marine safety i believe that the only way to ensure that the coast guard's marine safety program is staffed by qualified and experienced personnel will be the enactment of legislation that kind of finds new processes and procedures to ensure that robust standards are in place and met by the marine safety program for that reason i believe that  the coast guard authorization act h r twenty eight thirty which the house of representatives even with a presidential veto by resigning three hundred ninety five votes to seven is absolutely critical against this backdrop we will also hear today from the national transportation safety board regarding their proposal to align their relationship with the coast guard regarding american all the members of our subcommittee but doing outstanding work because without the outstanding work of the subcommittee there is absolutely no way that we would have been able to get the vote that we got on the floor of the house and with that i ranking member law to write while he is not here now supposed to be here very shortly and as a result i would ask unanimous consent to insert his prepared statement into the record so the subcommittee will be hearing from the department of homeland security's office of the inspector general regarding their review of the coast guard's marine investigation program i'm concerned by the report's findings that many of the coastguards investigating officers do not meet the qualifications standards prescribed for those positions and that the services placed its review and services relax its review management of the program i am encouraged by the coastguards positive response to the report's recommendations however i would like to hear more regarding the plans of the coast guard and how they will put into place the different measures to improve the investigation process i'm also concerned about the scope of the new authorities being proposed by the national transportation board which would authorize the board to establish itself as the lead investigating agency at its own choosing and without regard or consultation with the coast guard this policy could have the effect of muddying the water farther allowing the two agencies to move forward with competing and vesta geishas with different aims and needs i look forward to discussing the proposed language further with the witnesses to determine if such an expansion is necessary finally i know it has been there has been some valid concerns about the ability of the coast guard to conduct marine casualty investigations i would like the record to reflect that the investigation concluded by the coast guard in spill on the delaware river a few years ago was handled very professionally and was completed in a timely manner i want to commend them for mr chairman i want to again thank you for the clear that as i've said many times i reiterate that i am the biggest fan of the coast guard but i am also the biggest critic because i wanted to be the very very best that it can be because there's so much that depend on it and all of our efforts as an effort to all of our efforts are aimed at trying to strengthen the coast guard so that it can be the very very best that it can be not just for the president but for generations yet unborn with that we will now hear from our witnesses we welcome all of you we will hear from miss ann richards and she is the inspector general for our dates with the department of homeland security morning karen cummings and members of the subcommittee i am ann richards assistant inspector general for audits for the department of homeland security thank you for the opportunity to discuss our report on the coast guard management of the marine casualty investigations program i would for like to express our appreciation to the coast guard's office of budget and program as well as the staff assigned to the marine casualties investigation program for their timely and for responses to my staff's requests for information and documentation our audit was conducted at the request of the committee on transportation and infrastructure and the senate commerce science and transportation committee my testimony will address three areas of concern identified in our audit they are first the training experience and qualification of marine casualty investigators second the levels at which marine casualty investigations are conducted and third the coastguards process for reviewing and closing its backlog of marine casualty investigations concerning the training experience and qualifications of investigators we found that fifteen of the twenty two marine casualty investigators in our sample were not qualified to conduct marine casualty investigations based on the standards of political during our audit period this problem can be attributed to inadequate management oversight and internal controls to ensure effective assignment training and development of qualified marine casualty investigators across the coast guard the coast guard's one thousand nine hundred eighty eight standard for determining who was qualified to conduct marine casualty investigations which was in effect at the time we analyzed our sample required a combination of experience investigative tasks and training to be considered pre qualified for the marine casualty investigations program personnel had to be qualified as a hall or machinery and small vessel inspector or be trained in port operations as a boarding officer facility inspector and harbor safety officer the one nine hundred eighty eight standard also require that personnel satisfactorily complete specific investigative tasks and satisfactorily complete the basic marine investigator training course seven of the twenty two investigators reviewed at the five locations visited during our audit met the prequalification standards by either fulfilling all port operations requirements or through a combination of inspector qualifications the remaining fifteen marine casualty investigators or sixty eight percent of the investigators we reviewed were not qualified under the one thousand nine hundred eighty eight standard of particular concern were for investigators who did not meet any of the requisite training experience or qualification requirements and did not attend the basic marine investigator training course in august two thousand and seven the coast guard revised the qualifications for marine casualty investigators by updating the tasks that an investigator must perform to qualify for the position revised qualifications also remove the prequalification requirement of being a hall or machinery and small vessel inspector according to the coast guard knowledge in these specialty areas is essential to the ability of the investigators to correctly identify the causes of marine casualties and issue appropriate safety alerts and recommendations consequently removing the standard may negatively affect the qualifications and capabilities of coast guard marine casualty investigators the coast guard claims the prequalification standard as a hauler machinery and small vessel inspector are still required although not specifically outlined in the august two thousand and seven standard since this prequalification is a prerequisite for attending the basic marine investigator training course however we found that five of the fifteen investigators that we reviewed that had attended the basic course did so without meeting any of the prerequisites for attendance further the current prerequisites for the course calls for certification as a  machinery or a small vessel inspector which we believe degrades the prerequisites the problem of unqualified marine casualty investigators can also be attributed to the lack of a clear and desirable career path for investigators and the coast guards decision to reduce from four years to three years the tour of duty as a marine casualty invest gaiter which hinders investigators in acquiring the experience needed for career development in contrast civilian marine casualty investigators are not subject to the three year tour of duty rotation standard over time civilian investigators can gain a greater knowledge of specialties such as local waterways and industries or experience in enforcing maritime regulations of the twenty two marine casualty investigators we reviewed one with  civilian in fiscal year two thousand and seven the coast guard reported there were six civilian serving as full time marine casualty investigators to its credit as part of its efforts to enhance the marine safety program the coast guard is planning to add civilian investigator positions unqualified marine casualty investigators are not a new issue to the coast guard coast guard studies in the mid one nine hundred ninety s of various aspects of the marine casualty program also identified many of these same problems with marine casualty investigator qualifications although the coast guard studies included recommendations to address these problems there was little progress made in this area the second area i want to discuss concerns the levels at which marine casualty investigations are conducted the coast guard has guidance identifying the appropriate level to conduct an investigation based on the severity of the incident the levels of marine casualty investigations our preliminary investigations which are initial investigative efforts data collection activity investigations which usually consist only of collecting basic factual information in formal investigations which are less exhaustive than formal investigations but determine and report on the causes of the casualty and formal investigation which are reserved for the more serious or significant incidents in which the most investigative value can be gained data provided by the coast guard showed that between january first two thousand and three and october thirty first two thousand and six ninety three percent of all marine casualty investigations were conducted either at either the preliminary or data collection activity level the two lowest levels of effort that consists only of collecting information and do not require an analysis of cause only thirteen of fifteen thousand and best a geisha is were conducted at the formal level our detailed review of a sample of one hundred forty five marine casualty investigations from the five coast guard locations visited showed that fifty three percent of the investigations  conducted at a lower level than that recommended by coast guard guidance the sector commands have the leeway to conduct investigations at other than the recommended level however to main control maintain control over the program the sector command should document departures from coast guard guidance we also compared an extract of fifteen thousand three hundred twenty seven marine casualty investigations contained in the coast guard's database against the coast guard's guidance on the recommended levels of investigation from this comparison we identified twelve hundred fifty five cases which were investigated at a lower level than prescribed by coast guard guidance as a result of formal and informal investigations conducted at the lower data collection activity level causal factors were not always determined without such determinations the coast guard may have lost the opportunity to issue safety recommendations or alerts to prevent or minimize the effect of similar casualties finally we found the coast guard headquarters was not timely in its review and closure of marine casualty investigations on november ninth two thousand and six coast guard headquarters had a backlog of four thousand two hundred forty investigation which two thousand four hundred sixty six or fifty eight percent had been awaiting review and closure for more than six months one headquarters staff was responsible for review for reviewing and closing all of the investigations this function is only one of several functions performed by this staff member to reduce the backlog the coast guard resorted to a mass closure of investigations without there are review on september twenty ninth two thousand and six coast guard closed three thousand eight hundred forty eight investigations that it deemed low risk however based on the data provided by the coast guard there were one hundred ninety four informal investigations and one formal investigation included in this mass closure project although the coast guard deemed them low risk we considered the investigations of high risk because they involve serious incidents requiring complete causal analysis coast guard studies dating to one thousand nine hundred four have identified the same basic problems affecting the marine casualty investigation program in september two thousand and seven the coast guard issued a plan for strengthening the program this plan included a recommendation similar to those made in one thousand nine hundred four and in our audit report coast guard senior leadership must take seriously implementing these recommendations to having to have a lasting impact on the rim casualty investigations program mr chairman members of the committee this concludes my statement i will be pleased to answer any questions you may have thank you very much rear admiral james watson good morning chairman cummings representative lo beyond members of this subcommittee thirty years ago when i entered the coast guard it was not uncommon to lose whole ships to the sea inspected ships with professional crews like edmund fitzgerald the poet ocean ranger and marine electric port designs loading training and maintenance lead to structural failures the coast guard investigated and analyze each casualty and made the necessary changes to design construction manning and inspection standards today the risk of marine casual of a serious marine casually on a inspected vessel is less than one in a million but we can do better just one year into george washington's first term alexander hamilton created the u s revenue marine service which is today's coast guard he charged our first officers to forget that their seafaring countrymen are freeman impatient of domineering government officials he charged them to carry out the law and warned that sloppy work would create clamor discussed in alarm this the combination of maritime service leadership professional law enforcement has characterized the coast guard for two hundred eighteen years your alarm regarding our casual investigation program has reverberated throughout the coastguard nothing gives us more resolve than suggesting we have neglected alexander hamilton's warning in response to the questions you raised i can you we currently have one hundred thirty six persons assigned to marine casualty investigating officer billets one hundred ten of those persons are certified as marine casualty investigators the other twenty six are apprentice investigators coast guard wide we have a total of four hundred and forty eight civilians officers and warrant officers who are certified marine casualty investigators every coast guard sector and marine safety unit has at least one certified casualty investigator most have more but we are completing a review of all personnel conducting ring casually investigations and will assign veteran marine casually investigators back to investigation bill is to fill critical gaps military workforce is perfectly suited to adjust when necessary ultimately the coast guard's marine safety program including marine cows investigations will have to grow to match the growth of the marine industry by this time next year we plan on having a marine investigation center of expertise and over forty new investigator billets the coast guard and n t s b are authorized to investigate major marine casualties n t s b has a staff of sixteen and investigates about marine casualties a year coast guard provides the immediate response to all reported marine casualties and complete it's about five thousand investigations a year unlike the n t s b coastguard investigations must go beyond determination of the cause and determine if a violation of law or regulation warrants administrative civil or criminal action or overall marine safety mission which includes search and rescue pollution response waterways management and marine inspection also requires characteristics unique to coast guard investigations such as speedy dissemination of safety alerts notice to mariners and policy updates we strongly believe that the existing statutory and investigatory regimes work well and should not be changed neither agency's role in casually investigations should be diminished any change would seriously disrupt the existing well considered statutory balance and interagency cooperation between the coast guard and the n t s b n t s b primacy in rank as we investigations will not only disrupt the good order and discipline of the u s maritime community it would also proclaim to governments around the world the commandant of the united states coast guard has been summarily moated a message we do not want to send the coast guard is keenly aware of what is at stake for america's waterways our economy and for the thousands of people who go to se we stand ready to work with the n t s b and congress to address all the marine casualty investigation issues in the context of the existing statutory investigatory framework i look forward to this hearing and responding to your questions thank you very much mr michigan i guess what i don't usually do this but we have a just said something that just i just want you to answer  is a personal friend of mine and so i and i have the highest regard for him and all of the members of the coast guard many of whom are i consider good friends our objective is in no way to diminish the role of the coast guard or to send any signals that would in any way diminish that signal to indicate any kind of demotion in terms of of the important role that they play  as you know the national transportation safety board is an independent federal agency charged by congress with investigating every civil aviation accident united states and significant accidents in other modes of transportation road highway marine pipeline and hazardous materials and issuing safety recommendations that aimed at preventing future accidents i'm want to talk today about our request to modify the authority we currently have to investigate marine accidents the board proposes to have the right to immediate aftermath of a marine casualty there is a disagreement between the safety board and the coast guard over interpretation of the regulations we have jointly issued such authority is consistent with that we now have for other modes of transportation safety board the coast guard currently enjoy a good working relationship however no assurance that a disagreement concerning primacy in a high profile marine accident can be resolved in the short timeframe necessary to respond quickly and efficiently we believe that in the ass in the aftermath of an accident there should be no confusion or uncertainty about which federal agency has the lead and which investigative protocol will be followed the safety board and the coast guard take different approaches to x and investigation we use a party system to leverage the resources of technical experts from operators manufacturers and professional organizations they provide a specialized knowledge to help develop the factual record and the coast guard is almost always a party to our marine investigations and with an under our legislation would have a statutory right to two party status we may also convene a public hearing to gather additional data that factual information gathered from various sources is routinely released to the public to inform them of the progress we're making after the record is developed analyze the board then discuss the report and deliberate on findings the probable cause and recommendations in a public meeting coastguard  investigations as at all wants and have indicated address law enforcement as well as safety considerations but the cause is not determined in a public meeting the coast guard may also convene a board of marine board of investigation but it has not done so regularly in recent years safety board enjoys a world by reputation for technical excellence many of our marine investigators although they are small in number hold the highest u s coast guard licenses as vessel masters or chief engineers we also have investigators with extensive experience as coast guard and the inspectors and vesta gaiters our investigators also include specialists in other engineering operations and human performance disciplines and we have staff dedicated to the analysis of ship voyage data recorders  and can draw on years of experience of our staff in reading out cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders just last week the international maritime organization adopted a code for safety investigations into marine casualties reflecting the current practice in many countries and the growing trend in many others that the code states and i quote a marine safety investigation should be unbiased to ensure the free flow of information in order to achieve the outcome the investigator carrying out a marine safety investigation should have functional independence from the parties involved in the marine casualty or marine incident and anyone who may make a decision to take administrative or just narry action against an individual organization involved in that incident the safety board is is that independent agency the coast guard will always be in charge of rescue response to curate and port safety their investigations and investigators are geared to frequent and routine accidents and the safety board has no intention or capability to take over that role we excel at the unusual accidents where which are often the most serious and also fortunately the most rare is only a nose at the safety board seeks clear and unambiguous authority to lead this approach where has worked very well in our aviation rail and pipeline investigations and work equally well in future for marine investigations i'll be happy to answer any questions i want to thank all of our witnesses for your testimony  richard there were several items that the committees suggested that the inspector general's office might examine but which you did not devote much attention in your report to this report responded that there are some conflicting interpretations in applications of the coast guard september two thousand to policy letter such as regarding the question of what constitutes a loss of propulsion you also suggested that dollar estimates for damages in the various categories of investigations should be updated but i do any other suggestions that you  e to make to us but regard to potential statutory change no sir we when we started the audit we were looking at the broad spectrum but when we found the problems in the qualifications of the marine casualties investigators and the issues on what level they were actually completing the investigations we concentrate our efforts on those issues believing that the coast guard needed to address those first and that there would be time to look at the broader issues after the critical issues have been addressed well on that note you you know during the report that the coast guard marine casually investigation program needs additional qualified personnel and you have recommended increasing the number of civilians in the casualty program for extending the tool of duty for coast guard personnel can you  that have been done being at levels other than what was recommended by the coast guard guidance the amount of time it took to complete those investigations wouldn't shed accurate light on the full staffing that would be needed by the coast guard we would ask that the coast guard complete a workload analysis to project how many investigators they need total and we did suggest that increase number of civilian investigators would be beneficial to the coast guard in part because as the civilians do not rotate similar to the military members they would have time to develop the local expertise in that particular waterway or the industry at a particular port the coast guard has a number of civilian investigators currently but we believe that they should look into increasing that number now where i mean you know i heard what you said about the image of the  comment and and certainly we do not want that the image of the commandant diminish in the least bit but i guess one of the things i'm concerned about is effectiveness and efficiency and i often talk about how we can get caught up in a culture of mediocrity i talked about that with regard to katrina  where not thank god the coast guard was great but of agencies were caught up in a culture that did not allow us to respond the way we should have responded and in this instance i think when you see when we're talking about the n t s b and doing investigations there's been times in the past when the coast guard has a bully which other believe that they may have been a conflict of interest and the n t s b trying to mean is that correct did you see that as a diminishing of might and i want you to be ready for this michigan's has a limited budget we saw that when we were working on a jay situation and c s p was very sensitive about the little bit of money that they have and how tight things are w need to be in a position to do but no matter how you look at it it's a probability of taking on some more work and i'm just trying to figure out where this how does this all come together i mean in other words some kind of way i take it there are cases that you based on your testimony that the n t s b look at the same way them and this is something that we really need to be involved in and what tell me that the things that would qualify would allow you the kinds of factors the facts are facts for us that would cause you to be able to get in the case under the proposed changes that you're not able to get into now the understand the question yes or let me just say that i think we look at this request and we think it really is a modest change is not changing the underlying guidelines or  criteria that we use to select accidents what we're looking simply to be a tie breaker in the case of high profile accidents where there is a dispute and i'm not suggesting that that happens very often right now because of the the cost of the that's involved is a dollar value assigned to it if it's we use the term catastrophic which for example was it was applicable in the act and ethan allen where it was not a navigable waters that the coast guard wasn't involved we use that criteria which is in our statute to be able to look at that accident even though it was under status direction so fundamentally we think that the criteria is not going to change but will we want to make sure that in our statute just as we have the authority in aviation to take the lead and all of that that what that means and it really means following our protocols so that it's clear that we're the spokes person our investigator is in charge there was a question or comment made earlier about parallel investigations we fully expect as well as with the f a a that the enforcement will continue or the coast guard we continue to carry out its investigations they think that they're enforcing issues that have to be addressed that is not in conflict in fact that happens now what we want to be sure is that in a major casualty like the cosco busan that we there is one voice speaking for the to the public about the accident that the facts are developed under the guidelines that we've put forth and that we work cooperatively and again mostly works that were you know there's been some examples where it has been i hope there answers your question yeah you know you did now you use the word tiber is that right new use that word that's my word yes or who would break the tie right now right now right now would be a standoff i mean if we couldn't agree presumably would both move forward that both of you doing it would be doing investigations and what you're saying that it would be better if there was this tiebreaker and with the n t s b i guess being more of an independent sort of agency am i right that's that's the way our statue was was written right to kurdistan that congress wanted as to be had the independent responsibility to look at all the modes of transportation including marine and to because there are other rate of the regulator the do the certification a lot of these issues that come into play and it's important i think when congress created the statute forty years ago that they wanted somebody who didn't have that responsibility who wasn't the enforcement agency wasn't the regulator who wasn't that sort of fire who didn't issue the licenses to be able to look impartially at all those issues and it's worked very well and we but we want to make sure that in the event that there is that kind of disagreement with the coast guard that we could by statute assert the lead in an important more investigation we don't expect and you made the point about resources we're not asking we don't we would like more resources but they're not reflected in the president's budget so we're not going to have more investigators we don't anticipate they're going to be we're going to have the resources do many more investigations that we do we're pretty selective about the ones that where we want to assert our lead we just want to be sure that in the event of a dispute that can't be resolved through the informal process of our office working with th answer staff to put together we now have seven open investigations none of them are long or older than a little over a year old and a couple months old in the last ten years with our limited staff we've issued  twenty two reports and seventeen briefs then a total of one hundred two hundred forty four recommendations half of those to the coast guard and we've close to half of the have to those hundred twenty acceptable so we think we're pretty we pick accidents we're pretty selective but we get the job done we've had some problems in the past with backlog we admit that in the last couple of years and i think we we had a g a o report that we paid attention to we really improved operations so we we don't we want to make sure that we can continue to focus on the most difficult high profile accidents because we think those have the biggest payoff in the long run in terms of safety just one last question  come back later but ramel watch and respond to what she just said it sounds like it makes sense to me and maybe i'm missing something said about affected missing the fish and saying talking about a tie breaker situation talking about n t s b which is supposed to be the more independent agency not really trying to take away any authority i don't think and i'm just trying to figure out i just need your response and then this or what my point was is that when congress changes the the legislation legislative authority or for the coast guard to be able to manage when it's going to do an investigation and when it isn't shift primacy to another agency that that appears to everyone around the world as a as a type of a demotion it it's it's an appearance thing we shift the lead to end he has to be on a regular basis right now the system that we have working under the memorandum of understanding between the tween the two agencies works very well and in fact i think it sends a much more powerful statement when the commandant who has the authority to do an investigation voluntarily says i think this is one that they ought to be given to the n t s b to lead because there's involvement of a coast guard operation with respect to that particular incident could be the v t s it could be a marine inspection it could be out of place and we've been doing that the system that we have with the authorities that both agencies have right now works very very well i think the the improvements that have been made in the marine industry bear this out i think that and then i turned over to jim it's a lot to read but you know in my opening statement i talked about how some of these issues have been passed on year after year decade after decade and i do believe that it was the actions of this com significant movement significant with regard to marine safety i guess what my concern is is that when i would hope that everybody who takes on the position of comm him but you know i'm just wondering when a new commandant come in and future generations will we all you know having hearings up and having but hopefully we won't we have an airing but particular casualty it may not be driven by any anything other than that we don't know we are suggesting that the authority should be given to the national transportation safety board to make that casualty what if there is a situation where there needs to be some discipline there than it needs to be done fast and information needs to be moved out to the coast guard's inspectors or our boarding officers in order to correct the maritime i mean this really is a good order and discipline kind of a issue that's not unlike what the coast guard does for ourselves and it's very important for the commanding officer to be able to have that authority but with regard to punishment authority that would remain with you all right is that  absolutely the enforcement responsibility would continue with the coast guard and let me just say that this is how we were currently with the f a a and with the coast guard the we fully respect the missions of both the f a a and or responsibilities in fact our process allows for that kind of action to be taken immediately if that's what's called for that does not in any way get in the way of the safety investigation which may take a little longer to to identify the probable cause we are we feel strongly that the way to improve safety over the long term is to take action as quickly as possible so we know in no way want to use our process or currently use our process to delay any kind of enforcement action whether it be against pilots or mariners that needs to be taken i was for example a member on scene for a cruise ship accident in juneau just about a year ago and we worked with the coast guard we were the lead agency but at the same time they took the actions necessary to engage the crew and asked the crew member who was on the deck at the time of the ax and he was voluntary surrendered his license and they're still having conversations with the captain that is the kind of process that is currently working and would for the last year and a half but i have a little different take on today's hearing and proposal and try and make that evident during the course of my questions and well to you i mean before i came here i was prosecuting attorney we had this really really big murder and i was a little naive country lawyer and so forth and so on and it was apparently budget time appropriations time and we were lucky enough to be assisted by some federal law enforcement agencies and the next time it came back to the crime scene  that back at home that their tax dollars were working the f b i needed more money than the a t f because they had more jackets working on the murder and this this to me i think as i read the inspector general's report i think the coast guard is responsible for creating a vacuum in this area and i think that the inspector general's report by pointing out deficiencies has sort of left the playing field open and i do fault the coast guard for that i will say though michigan's that i think that n t proposal is not but nine it's not minor and it is a pretty big aggressive attempt to to fill that vacuum and i thought it was interesting that you used the word tiebreaker in the admiral picked up on the tiebreaker a tiebreaker to me means that if at the end of the game the score is tied to flip a coin you go into overtime some your version of tiger you always win i mean and so so if there's a tie and there's a disagreement that tie is broken because you say you're going to take the lead right i mean that's how you break that you you can never lose a tie you can have a tie we can have a disagreement but if n t s b says a tie breaker time you win right i mean i'm not wrong about that am i right that's what i thought and and to the admiral's point about it appearing to the world to be a demotion i look at the proposed legislation that n t s b has set up areas particularly section eleven thirty two a sub paragraph c in the participant worked pretty well and everybody's got along you say you like the comment that you like the coast guard they've got some deficiencies that the i g is indicated but but in the you are taking him out of a process that he's now involved in sir if i could explain the when we talk about probable cause and i mentioned in my statement that probable cause is determined in a public meeting that is convened by the chairman of our board member safety board and we publicly vote on the public on the probable cause we do that for all o is the coast guard under this provision as currently exist they would serve as a party to the investigation our investigation and they would sit at the table we would share information with them they would share information with us they made conducted independent force an investigation that's required but under our process which is again what we use now for for marine investigations we as a safety board charted charge by congress determine th probable cause of the accident well then why did need to put that sentence and be tried to in that language just parallel the authority that we currently have and investigated aviation accident if you were to look at them side by side we've changed substituted marine for aviation all we're trying to say is that this is the same system that we currently have in aviation where we have the clearly and this is a process we follow i would make a distinction now that in aviation we are charged by statute to investigate every aviation accident under the under the statute which we are really not changing we only investigate major marine accidents as defined by reggie lation ok thank you very much for that  e to you ms richards the under the current coast guard personnel requirements that apparently came up short in terms of meeting them in your report a marine casually investigator must be either a hollow inspector a machinery inspector a small vessel inspector and have served as a boarding officer facility inspector harbor safety officer as the did the i g is a part of its investigation look at the inspector and have also served as a boarding up a surface realty inspector harbor safety officer i have with me resumes of our safety investigators which i'd be happy to provide to the committee i don't have the information to characterize or classified in the way you've asked for it but we can certainly get that idea you i would ask unanimous consent that those documents be made part of the record so graham and if the chairman will permit me one more question before i thank you so much missing as you indicated in your testimony that the proposed language would give the board clear authority to move forward in the case that there is a paralysis between the the board and the coast guard  created by disagreement over interpretation of the regulations as they have jointly issued i would ask you has such a paralysis ever occurred it's my understanding and i've been with the board about two and a half years that in recent history there has not been such  paralysis admiral watson and dr spencer from our office were colleagues when they were both with the coast guard before dr spencer came to the safety board so as it's been explained to me this is done as much on personal relationships now as it is in terms of the process that's outlined in the regulations but there has been instances in the past where it has been a problem and we can get you specific examples of that if that's helpful to the committee well as i would ask you to supplement the record because i mean  what you i think you're telling me is everything works well because the commandant's a great guy the folks and n t s b are great people but you think that somehow the new commandant might be a jerk and we may get some jerks over the n t s b and so we have to make some rules that that we're not have any problems at the moment but we have to make some rules taking away some authority from the coast guard because we may get people who don't get along in the future i think there are we are looking for a clear authority same authority we have been investigating every other mode of transportation when there's an accident we have had problems in the past currently things are working well they could work better we've had some specific issues for example in the cosco busan that we worked out but it's not without its problems and what we're looking for we think it's we we don't understand why we shouldn't have the same authority to elect lead marine investigations that we do in aviation rail pipeline it has risk materials and if the chairman will build me just because you brought up the busan was the confusion regarding the cuzco bus on the street of a faulty process or was it the failure of certain individuals to follow the appropriate steps outlined in the current process my understanding what happened in the  the information that was provided to us and nationally in terms of the amount of the spill was inaccurate i think that everybody knows that that was that was part of the problem here we learned through press accounts the next day that the spill was much greater than than what had been originally told to us we then decided perhaps we should take a closer look at this and the coast guard did also contact but we didn't get the information about the the actual dimensions of the casualty directly from the coast guard we got them from press accounts and we so we didn't get on scene until three days after this accident happened as a result of that some of the important information like the voyage data recorder was not secured and you know that mistakes happen and we have made made it better but we think if there had been a better process at the beginning in terms of more accurate information we could have made a decision another areas and i don't have an answer to that but i'd personally like to look into that and it could be because the coast guard has had the same investigative function since two hundred thirty two or so and and  as possible that it's been relatively effective over that time as it's changed to meet the needs of the maritime transportation whereas in other areas we just didn't we didn't we didn't have a second effective way to investigate a  there may be some accidents where the coast guard disagrees with the safety board's position that the board's investigation should take precedence over the coastguards investigation and a change in law would enable the speed to be solved on a bigger sleep and quickly  authority congress wanted an independent agency who was not the regulator was not the enforce law enforcement agency didn't didn't do the certification didn't do the inspection to  have the responsibility to investigate accidents because you know we don't have a history necessarily with any of the players in in a particular accident we didn't we don't i think don't life by man i think i think that's why you were a settle in and a very important for us to go back over the same question which is then why did not congress include the coast guard in that and that's all i'm saying is perhaps we need to go back and look at that history to understand better  the for the record the all the criteria that we use loss of life is one criteria significant loss of life another criteria would be the a dollar about in terms of the damage done to the vessel itself the other criteria we look at is whether the accident raises important safety implications that would have significance for the marine industry overall or whether this is an accident that we've seen before where what's what's your what's your process and timeline say in an airplane and desiccation  with the f a a and they provide us information so it's a little bit different in marine we have to be more selective and so that's why the criteria is developed in putting regulation we don't statue talk about major marine casualties and then all of that's defined between that's right so in fact i think it's important to reiterate that we we agreed with almost all of the recommendations from from the i g and we're actively working on implementing changes as a result of th recommendations but back to the date i just want to clarify that the issue there was the prerequisites of an officer or warrant officer or perhaps even a civilian that we have in our policy to begin the process of becoming a marine casualty investigator and as mr richards said we had a standard that that had a requirement that you have qualifications in other areas of marine inspection the whole inspector machine respects inspector small passenger vessel inspector or over in the ports port operations side the harbor  officer and facility officer and so on that that was the main cause for the i g is determination on these on qualified people some of them had actually  achieved their qualifications through going to school in yorktown of their marine casually investigation school and then perform forming investigations as a apprentice and then sitting before the board but they had they bypassed the prerequisite so it was determined that they were unqualified now those people some of them may have been lawyers they may have been able architects like myself that hadn't been in those particular assignments prior to being an investigating officer but they were given exceptions to becoming rink as investigators by virtue of other qualifications now and so where our policy or guidance doesn't cover every different situation and we have that the allowance for simon officers and the commanding officers to make these changes i thank you for that i'm  to put a two part question to you we've heard an urgent of coast guard needs and additional personnel i've heard potentially up to maybe ten thousand more to carry out of its responsibilities two part question what areas that we would focus on is are the areas where the maritime community whether it's boating cruise lines activities all of the different growth areas of the maritime community are growing we need to right size the coast guard since we have missions that affect all of these waterways users we need to match that with the size of the of the activities that we're responsible for so that would be one area the other thing is that we have been charged through the safe port act and some other recent just lation to do things that we haven't done before we have joint command centers that congress has asked us to manage in all of the port areas we need staffing in those command centers we also  emissions we've got a lot of activities associated with environmental protection those are the types of things that we're going to need to grow to fill now with regards to bring casualty inspectors investigators  i we have a program to enhance the whole marine safety program of which the investigations program is a critical part of that our fiscal year nine budget richardson mr chairman i noticed our chairman had been or did you want me to defer to him now ok thank you ms chairman you know as i listen to this discussion this is the reason why we live in america and we have a democracy  i got to be really frank with you i represent an area with port there is no need for egos in this room it really doesn't matter to me who does it it's important that it's done  right i respect mr abnormal the need for not wanting to appear to be you know demoted or whatever but the bottom line is this isn't about who's demoted or who's promoted this is about ensuring we don't have accidents so people are not killed and our environment is not cause such harm that it costs all of us for generations when i look at what happened in san francisco it doesn't matter to me i don't think we really i understand you know in in the field of service and i have relatives who serve i understand the need to want to be respected and to be honored and we give you that but i don't believe we should jeopardize our personal safety based upon that now the gentleman from the other side asked you about some additional responsibilities and i didn't hear you reference i think the coast guard is now going to be working with also inspecting and being involved with elegy facilities as well the full and it's like when i look at all the additional responsibilities i don't view it as a negative i think what we would be saying to you and i remember other hearings that we've had of all the additional responsibilities now that is being laid on the coast guard i would see it as a welcoming assistance now i would challenge miss richards in this higgens to figure out how we can as all adults figure out a way to coach this or present it that it's not viewed as a negative but i would beast extremely opposed to us maintaining jurisdiction just for the sake of because we always had it because the american people deserve better than that and you have done a commendable job and all your the folks that work with you have done an excellent job but we should not jeopardize our personal safety for the sake that you've handled it for the last one hundred years with that let me say miss richards in your testimony you stated that the coast guard has not established a clear and desirable career path for its and instigators i think this means investigators actually that was tied to or you also state that the coast guard has not focused on addressing recommendations related to the investigators qualifications can you please go further in detail about these recommendations yes during our audit we spoke to a number of investigators both currently in investigator skaters because it's not seen as a desirable career move that doesn't lead to additional promotions and coast guard personnel expressed some reluctance to go into this the marine safety line and specifically the marines has to investigators because of course as normal individuals they are looking for the chance when in promotion and they don't feel that this is the quickest and easiest path to get there or even a short path to get there ok now the gentleman on the other side there mentioned that you know this really may not be that big of a problem but according to your testimony mr our rear admiral watson the internal i'm sorry the i g found that five out of the six individuals assigned to the marine casualty investigators in the sector san francisco were unqualified they also found the i report found in example that the casualty investigators sixty eight percent of those assigned to these positions are not qualified and then to further add burden to this in a report that was done in august of two thousand and seven the standards were removed from requiring pre qualifications that's a requirement from and that an individual have experience as a whole or machinery inspector and a small vessel inspector those were removed and the i g found that this change in fact lowered the standards which we see an impact today in accidents that have happened so that would bring me to the question where admiral it says that you guys have developed a plan when is it going to be implemented and why did you wait so long we had developed a plan for prior to  investigate the i g s report i touched on a few of the parts just a few minutes ago with the additional capacity that's needed for our program last year two thousand and seven we implemented a completely new training regime as well as a qualifications process once a a graduate of our training program and yorktown reaches the field and an apprentice and works under a mentor they are using something called a personal qualification system which has been revamped so that they have experience every element of the program before they go before a board of fully qualified senior investigators to be tested in their knowledge that whole system is been in place for years but the specifics essence lowered the standard yes that was in reference to the prerequisites for assignment to a marine casually investigator billet in the coast guard the old standards there were based on a 's version of the marine industry today we have a whole new set of qualifications for inspectors and for other officers in the coast guard sectors that we have today such that the prerequisites can go well beyond hall inspector and machinery inspector and sm passenger vessel inspector we have a large number of our people that are busy every day doing what we call ports they control which are exams of foreign vessels by far the larger number of our we're in the process of removing a prerequisite that existed back then that would have allowed a person who only experienced a limited activity as a coastguard boarding officer for certain navigational checks on a vessel or harbor patrol officers they are not going to be allowed to begin the process because they really don't have the adequate brac round so well we've really done is some ship doing we have not gone backwards mr chairman if i could just get thirty seconds to wrap up ms richards would you agree then that the standard has in fact been met no i would not it's our opinion that in particular the standard to be a whole or machinery inspector as well as a small vessel inspector is very important to the pre becoming a marine casualty investigator it was suggested to us the way it was explained to me was that those qualifications allowed the investigators when they were doing an investigation and talking to the operators of the vessel in question to basically tell if they were hearing truth or they were hearing a fabricated story or at least have some basic knowledge of how a vessel would be operated and the components of a vessel would be operated in order to make that initial determination which drives their investigation one of the individuals that we spoke to during the course of our audit was the captain of the port of new york he suggested to us that six to nine years experience as an inspector in those areas would be a sufficient criteria to become an investigator so we believe those are very important still so mr chairman i would just say that to me what i just heard here the last minute is of great concern to me that we have our admiral who feels that the standards are appropriate and yet we have the inspector general who says clearly they are not so i look forward to us exploring those further again admiral we have nothing but respect for you in fact our chairman has talked continually about the additional responsibilities that has been put on you and we support you so if there's a way that we can help you to do the job more effectively we want to do that and it shouldn't be viewed as a demotion it should be viewed as thanking you for what you've done and  mr richards said that's that's a quite that's a pretty tough statement she just me about what they found and we have a lot of confidence is that accurate and you said one hundred ten were fully qualified is that true i mean based upon and then and why are you doing that tell me what you mentioned certain people like yourself i think you said way exceptions are granted who i mean is it written somewhere that if i'm a plumber i can get an exception if i'm a you know if i'm a lawyer i can get an exception you remember you mention i'm wondering and i guess what i'm trying to get to is that if if i want to if i want somebody to operate on my heart i don't want people to got exceptions and they did never had to go through the investigations have so much and the potential for so much impact make sure that there's some kind of standard where is that standard of who gets an exception and then we'll hear from  or the the policy the guidance is designed for the majority of the people that you would the pool of people that you would draw from if you were the coast guard assignment officers and you were needing to put apprentice marine casually investigators out to the sectors and begin the process we're talking about ok who do you who do you use for the pool and so we we wro the guidance for the majority and we got to remember that we're not saying there's any exceptions to the sequence of going to the school doing the pea going through the board to get examined and then having the commanding officer actually sign your designation as a as a marine casting no exceptions there what we're talking about is is is it acceptable  to look beyond that assumed pool and choose somebody whose background has been in the technical side of the program i mean this gets into some of the same issues i think that you probably had to think about in the recent bill what should those qualifications be for different positions and i think if we could have hired somebody from the american bureau of shipping for  example as a civilian in the coast guard that person may have years and years of experience but he's never gotten the coast guard qualification as a marine inspector of halls or machinery that hundred ten how many of them were given exception hundred ten that you cited that were qualified fully qualified i don't know sir but those exceptions were in effect not exceptions because our system our policy  accommodates those reasonable alternatives and i'm a i'm a stop being but i gotta tell you what you just said concerns me more than anything else you've said here because what that means is that anybody can come up with a pie in the sky this is an exception and say ok this person is now met the requirements and that's not the way i mean that's the impression i get from what you said maybe i'm wrong but i think some of the problems that we're covering here and have in the past work of the committee leading to this hearing are going to be addressed in the if we ever get the well our people aren't up to a b s standards oh my goodness the a b s should be up the coast guard standards should be the other way around and  safety course and in the other provisions that we've crafted into that legislation will will the media rate the existing situation but two thirds of coast guard marine casualty investigators don't meet coast guard qualifications let alone the n t s b qualifications and five of the six who coast guard personnel who investigated the illusion in in san francisco main maritime academy master of us steamer motor vessels of any gross ton master science world maritime university bachelor of science california maritime  investigators thirty percent of casualty reports surveyed had factual errors and until we pressed this issue in committee coastguard not establish a career path for casualty investigators now the when i first immersed myself in this issue of the division of responsibilities in the n t s b and the coast guard it was in the aftermath of a vessel inspected by the coast guard that just a few days later sank in arkansas a duck gone through the coast guard and there were fatalities and coast guard insisted on investigating itself don't you think that was a conflict of interest so i think an organization like the coast guard needs to investigate itself we need to have a process to do a critical you dominate your numbers well could you be that lead investigator in a situation where just a few days before the coast guard said this  is fine to operate and a few days later it sinks then you should should you be the lead investigator of yourself so we have a long tradition of doing that we investigate when an accident occurs fallible when you're investigating yourself and at at the very least the m o you that resulted from that incident that that was preceded several years earlier by a previous m o you between the coast guard and the m t s b i think that should that should be refined there are two differing responsibilities can you tell me what what the differences are between  role of the n t s b in an investigation and the role of the coast guard in conducting an investigation is served the role of the n t s b is to determine the cause and the role of the coast guard is to determine the cause for the purpose of the management of the marine safety program which runs all the way from the inspections standards standards for search and rescue waterways management all the missions that we have ists into the investigation whatever specialty they need but the n t s b is in charge of the overall investigation and in the end they make the recommendations independent if boeing were the only one to have investigated the crash of a seven three seven that aliquippa pennsylvania and following an uncommanded rudder movement boeing would have cleared itself of any responsibility said this just doesn't happen we have ninety three million hours of operation of seven thirty seven's and we never had an uncommanded rudder rudder movement all all really there were at least a dozen there were to explain crashes no the manufacturer should not be in charge of investigating its own aircraft or failure of its own yes they should be engaged a should be part but they should not be the one to make the final determination there are certain incidents in which the n t s b ought to have the lead and where there is clearly a conflict of interest where the  instance cited a moment ago i think that surely coast guard should be engaged as as provided for in the m o u but i think the n t s b in those situations ought to be the lead because they have the independence and the objectivity through a number of commandants now the responsibility of the coast guard to have the overall charge for the marine industry needs to stay with the  authorities when n t s b was recreated and then subsequently reinforced that original decision is that it is it a good idea now to change the primacy for the maritime fisheries committee which had jurisdiction over coast guard at the time and it was done without a great deal of thought but let me ask ms higgins in this richard whether you think the m o you is in fact working satisf investigators it has worked pretty well i think the issue we talked about a little earlier our concern is if we can't reach agreement and i don't want to say that we haven't been able to reach agreement but in that instance we think it ought to be we ought to be able to look to the statute to say and to be able to assert our jurisdiction to take the lead for all the reasons that you've just suggested because we are an independent agency and we have a responsibility to look  at the regulatory agencies as we do in aviation and the other modes to reach probable cause and safety recommendations it regardless of who that might affect was richard so we did not look at the interaction between the coast guard and the n t s b on determining who would take the lead on investigation so i don't have any information to offer at this time well homeland security is rather new to this as a department the new to this subject matter  michigan's let me come back the n t s b has a has a very different relationship with other modes of transportation it has a primacy role we do with every other but it's it's very clear what's different about  modified and again i don't want to suggest here that we haven't all tried to make it work but we do think that from the standpoint of the safety board we ought to have the authority to exert primacy  and take the lead without any question about that in investigations where we can't reach agreement as we talked about earlier the regulations and the process that we currently follow would would be that what we would look to for guidance here but if for some reason we can't reach agreement then we think we ought to be able to search or stiction because we think we have a track record that shows that our investigations were very selective we only look at those what we think will have national significance in terms of recommendations we make and that we have demonstrated that the benefit of having an independent investigative body take the lead in certain kinds of investigations well they dismissed the issue is not very great significance and did not dispatch personnel to the scene to to in i mean a substantial investigation and only somewhat in a different vein of t w a eight hundred the f b i arrived on the scene immediately there were right there they have offices all over the country and took charge of the sea as a crime scene that substantially inhibited the ability of the n t s b to look at the to to conduct its complete investigation as an accident as a as a failure of a system gaining control of material gaining control of the engines for example tend to inspect those engines and determine whether an engine failure occurred to rule out a or rule in a missile strike as was hypothesized that the else so very very important distinction and i'm not suggesting that the coast guard step aside nor is the n t s b the postcard stepaside of and stay out of the investigation should be a partner but there are agencies work together until it could be determined that in fact it was an accident rather than a criminal act but it was it was very hard to make that work and as a result of that we changed our procedures and now it works much  better and again i think we said at the outset we have enormous respect for the coast guard and the challenges that they face in terms of all the responsibilities they would be as they are now a party to any investigation we would take primacy we need their resources we need to capability to manage to help manage the site on scene and to do all the good things that they do in terms of search and rescue everything else but in the cosco busan for example the voyage data recorder was not protected immediately until our people got there was a recognition that there was that there even was one so there are just some of the things that are important in these major investigations that we think we have the expertise and the and the experience to handle taking nothing away from the coast guard and all the good work that they do but there are some special circumstances and special access where we think it would be important for us to be able to clearly take the lead and then to have our protocol and our process follow in terms of leading the investigation the coast guard would argue that they should have among other reasons because they are  improved my personal experience was with a boiler x explosion on the vessel called the s s norway down in miami florida and in that that investigation quite in the meantime there was a d o j investigation and just this year about five years later they both agencies d o j and the n t s b had outcomes but the coast guard he can do both of those roles as you say what the difference between the coast guard and the n t s b is that we do have an obligation to do the law enforcement side the the disciplinary side guard investigation is ongoing and the coast guard has the lead we can do both of these things at the same time we can accommodate both the n t s b and the d o j and we don't have a flight eight hundred type of situation that's what we've been doing for over one hundred years so i think that's part of the reason why congress has left our system the way it is in addition i think it's important to note that for aviation n t s b does all aviation casually investigations were they to do that for maritime they would add the five thousand and investigations that that we are currently doing to to their area of responsibility and if you think that there needs to be separation how is that justified just for a very small handful out of the total number i just think that there's a lot of unintended consequences that that could come from this or for a very long period of time the marine board was head qualifications are going to prove with an act of our authorization to build an establishment of these programs but meanwhile i think there are refinements to the at least refinements of the a move you that should be made and i would like to recommend that  and request specific that the coast guard submit their thoughts to this to the chairman and ranking member and that the n t s b submit their language comparably for changes and then let us be manly with those and see we can play the role of honest broker and and achieve what i see as a as a need to upgrade the quality of the safety investigation recommendation from the inspector general's office in that you were in agreement don't let me put words in your mouth just tell me what you say because i'm going to hold you to it agreed with some of it but disagreed with and which one was and that was the one that was about the the hall and machinery inspectors and small passenger vessel inspection as a prerequisite versus haul machinery or small passenger vessel inspectors as a entering prerequisite condition for assigning a person to a invest in marine casually investigation billet and if i could just touch on that sir the recommendation i'm for says revise the august two thousand marine casualty investigation qualification standard to include the prequalification of all all machinery and small vessel inspectors is that the one is sort of the word passenger vessel inspector and and actually that goes beyond that a variety of other inspection qualifications you don't have to have them all before you can it was almost impossible for us to have enough of a pool of people with prerequisites to feed our marine casually inspection program which requires one hundred thirty six coast guard officers to fill the billets if we had that hand in there and the reason is because we really don't need that large of a number of hull and machinery inspectors for us flag vessels like we did in the eighty's there aren't as many of those type of vessels our fleet of ten thousand two hundred inspecting vessels is largely small passenger vessels the industry has changed significantly and the the way you get experience on the large about souls these days is doing seven publication the coast guard actually did not include the wreck with it to be a haul or machinery or small vessel inspector they believe that it's covered because it's a prerequisite for attending the basic investigator training course and that's one of our problems with the coast guard's position because we know from our work that it's possible to attend the basic training without meeting the prerequisites for the basic training so we believe that the qualifications need to be specifically set in the coastguards guide and we also believe that the coast guard is taking a step backwards by eliminating the and and lowering the standards and we don't understand why the coast guard would choose to do so other than perhaps it's difficult to fill the bill because they don't have the number of personnel trained to meet all those inspector qualifications our work showed and the people that we talked to said that it was very important to have qualified i'm just wondering would you think the i g team would find them all of them be qualified i guess what i'm trying to understand is in a sample of the id the id they found sixty eight percent of the as an example or when i'm talking about the same thing and i'm trying to and i'm trying to figure out where that where we are we what where the problem  believe now you've got to remember that in this spring there's typically going to be more people that have reached their qualifications then in the summer when people just get assigned to a unit  n and for them to be able to tell me whether they agree with us but we look at the at the data it's like chairman oberstar looking at the the resumes they are what they are we we we make our own rules for this and we determine that they are fully qualified and i guess based on what you just said about seasonal cycle so would it be safe to say that there are times when a small percentage are qualified in other words you talk about snapshots and the fact that certain things happen a certain time whatever it is that would that be an accurate assessment you think yes or there's always going to be some apprentices in the system people that are assigned to a billet that have yet to be qualified they're working on their qualifications and do we see what we need is consistency because we never know when these things are going to happen and what we're going to need these personnel to do to use certain skills and i'm just trying to figure out how do you plan to i'm sure you would agree with me that we want more consistency we my you understand what i'm saying yes sir we have we have four hundred forty eight fully qualified ring casually investigators throughout the coast guard most of them are not in casually inspection investigator billets but we're a military organization if we need somebody that has the experience and knowledge to deal with a marine casualty on an elegy ship some special ship we will get the direction and i and i and i and i'm telling you we fight on both sides to try to get you the personnel and the expertise you need but one thing i do know is that if i have learned anything in my fifty seven years on earth i learned this can remember is that it was happening right now she come up to me and she put her hand over i and she says daddy let's play hide and go seek and then she say standing right in front of me and she said you can't buy me well that's all right book three year old but we i mean we have to face up to whatever the problems are that we have so we can try to address them because i think that we all want to work together to make this work so  because i has to realize that the coast guard is increasingly asked to do more things and then we scratch our heads selves our heads in amazement when you're not experts at everything we ask you to do and that's just not realistic but there are a couple things that come to mind that make me wonder whether or not something he doesn't need to improve number one the case of the siebel trader which is a vessel in the american flag had major modifications done to it over in china folks brought me photographs of those out and how they smuggle them out of china from photographs of it handed it to the coast guard and i think the answer was well we don't have enough people to inspect that wasn't a good thing second thing obviously that still continues to stick in my craw is the messed up on the one tends to one twenty three years to this day i haven't heard anyone in the coast guard and you do have some very day and so we're the nation's out one hundred million dollars we've got a tied up vessels that tells me you lack expertise and i would give you the opportunity to tell me that i'm wrong but those two things really jump out at me i appreciate your willingness to some changes what i what i haven't seen i'm curious if you've considered it as i can't believe that you need the best team every day you're not going to face a major collision every day you may not even face a major collision once a month but when you do need a good team you need a good team using the example of the air guard and the reserves w guard consider some sort of reserve outfit where people could have a career either in the merchant marine or working for a b s a lloyd's and but also have a reserve commission that when you need that pool of experts for a major collision like you saw in san francisco or any other similar that you could call those people up and that's how they perform their active duty  to believe that in this nation that there would be people who would be chomping at the bit for that opportunity of use curious as the coast guard is considered all we have a coast guard reserve and there are  large numbers of those people that have their primary job in other elements of the maritime do and we reverse particular or master mariners chief engineers i think maybe that that's the question you're you're asking and the answer is is no we we allow everybody to apply and compete on a more or less even playing field for the coast guard reserve and then we train them after that answer those are claiming keeping in mind that this is a specialty keeping in mind that you may have some fifty year old ship captain out there who would be a phenomenal investigator but who may not be up to the day to day activities on a three set on one of your big cutters or who may be beyond that financially just couldn't take that sort of hit to come back in the active force but would have all those years of experience in determining the cause of an accident i would think it would make abundant sense for the coast guard rather than again spending more money that train a handful of people that you're not going to need every day pursuing some sort of or a reserve officer corps of trained engineers of trained marine architects that you could call long when you have a major accident that you need a pool of experts wearing the coast g uniform to make a determination i would ask that that you can you consider that as well because again not i can hear this committee asking you to do a lot of things with a limited budget and what troubles me is there are times when you do phenomenally well such as hurricane katrina there are times such as stretching the one tends to one twenty three's were to this day i don't think you've done the nation any favors and i think that this might be somewhere in between where we can accomplish that goal by thinking outside the normal course of action i would ask that you or someone or the comment i get back to me on this because i do think it is a way of but the marine safety side was a little resistant to adding some civilian posts within that marine safety but i do think i supported that and continue to support that and i think that i know that my support is based upon the fact that all of the testimony before this subcommittee relative to rotation and career paths and things of that nature and longevity in the service point to the fact that on the marine safety side and then on the marine casualty side the country would be better served with a civilian component  the the uniformed corps and i think that that's was mr taylor's talking bad never thought of reserve ists but that makes perfect sense and i would ask you to take that back to the commandant because it does in fact make sense just a couple of clean up things and i was talking to the chairman and i do think admiral that this business of exemptions or exceptions has a sort of a negative connotation in this hearing today and i don't think it needs to be left that way i don't want anybody to be left with the impression that the coast guard using the chairman's analysis gee would send a plumber to do heart surgery and what i indicated to the chairman was i'm a lawyer he's a lawyer we have continuing legal education requirements some states have equivalencies and by virtue of being a member of congress remember the state legislature you get credit and so you don't have to sit in a classroom for two hours as soon as i'm pointing at a guy talking about the rules of evidence because you're actually creating laws at the national level and so you get credit for that and i assume that that forms the basis of your your exemptions your exceptions but if you could  perhaps supplement the record as to how the process works another would somebody coming from a b s and opting out of the hole inspector course is different from the chairman's example of a lawyer because you happen to be a lawyer you don't have to take the whole course so if you could do that the legislative language set up by the n t s b even though i have great respect for the work they do is a power grab in this instance and we'll respectfully disagree on that and so the chairman's suggestion that both n t s b and coast guard come up with suggested modifications to your memorandum of understanding i think would be a great idea and i would urge you both to accept the chairman's invitation and admiral to you i would say i really urge you to do it because i do get the sense that s b will be successful in tie breaks will now always be determined in favor of the n t s b unless you provide the majority of the members of this committee with a reasonable alternative and my objection to the power grab is that the inspector general's report found eight deficiencies and you have acknowledged seven of those and i would just say number four which is the eight to eight the coast guard created the original standards and my understanding is you went from holland specter or machinery inspector and small vessel inspector plus boarding officer plus facility inspector plus hired safety officer to now it's either all inspectors or machinery inspector or small  inspector plus the other three and that's the change that caused the inspector general to say that you sort of dumb down the standards but i have had a chance to sort of review of the resumes of the folks that work for the n t s b and i have to say that all of them have outstanding credentials but i would note that ninety five percent of them are focused a former coast guardsman so you can't you can't make the argument that people trained by the coast guard can't do the job when the n t s b is now hired the same people maybe they pay more money and i don't know  s b i think it's silly to say well let's give and t s b primacy even though there inspectors may not meet the qualifications that you're being criticised for so change for change sake is not very attractive to me either so end of the day please accept chairman ober star is invitation come up to modifications to the m o u and let's see if we can work this out and in a peaceful way that will continue to demonstrate great cooperation between the coast guard and the n t s b in michigan last thing at a train derailment in my district and i'm still waiting for your report so if you can get that to me it very much appreciated we will do that thank you so much i would imagine that if you have these investigators and the charge is appropriate it would be likely that they would testify or definitely provide some type of evidence in the scenery i mean is that a reasonable expectation well yes or they shouldn't even be charging mariner with any kind of charge unless they have qualified doing these investigations trying to present evidence of their findings only hearing it seems to me that there might be a problem with that would you would you agree yes sir but i don't have any evidence that we have used unqualified people to present a case to an a l j did you have a comment on that ms richards no sir we didn't try the investigations  and as usual we as you can see we are in a very much bipartisan manner and i think a lot has come out of this hearing and i'm hoping that the issues that we chairman over to resolve issues some of them you do it through statute some of it you do it by way of people sitting down and working out good differences or agencies sitting down the so where you can try your