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U.S. COAST GUARD MISSION

PERFORMANCE

(109–97)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

TRANSPORTATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 14, 2006

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice-Chair

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

GARY G. MILLER, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

CONNIE MACK, Florida

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JERROLD NADLER, New York

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

BOB FILNER, California

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

(II)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey, Chairman

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington,ViceChair

CONNIE MACK, Florida

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

DON YOUNG, Alaska

(Ex Officio)

BOB FILNER, California, Ranking Democrat

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

(Ex Officio)

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS

TESTIMONY

Page

Nimmich, Rear Admiral Joseph L., Assistant Commandant for Policy and

Planning, U.S. Coast Guard ................................................................................ 2

Stulginsky, Edward, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Audits, Department of Homeland Security ................................................................................. 2

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Filner, Hon. Bob. of California ............................................................................... 23

LoBiondo, Hon. Frank A., of New Jersey .............................................................. 26

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 38

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

Nimmich, Rear Admiral Joseph L .......................................................................... 31

Stulginsky, Edward ................................................................................................. 41

(1)

UNITED STATES COAST GUARD MISSION

PERFORMANCE

Thursday, September 14, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPOR- TATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION, WASH- INGTON, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Frank A.

LoBiondo [Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Coast

Guard and Maritime Transportation will come to order.

The Subcommittee is meeting this morning to review the Coast

Guard’s recent mission performance and, in particular, the Service’s efforts to balance its assets and personnel to carry out each

of its homeland security and non-homeland security missions. The

Subcommittee has held several hearings to review mission balance

and performance during my time as Chair, and I hope that we will

hear from the witnesses on how the Coast Guard is working to successfully meet its goals for each of its many important missions.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the Coast

Guard was given substantial additional responsibilities to secure

U.S. ports, vessels, and coastal waters. At the same time, the Subcommittee was concerned about the efforts these additional homeland security responsibilities would have on the Coast Guard’s capabilities to accomplish its traditional missions. Section 888 of the

Homeland Security Act of 2002 prohibits the Secretary from ‘‘substantially or significantly’’ reducing the missions of the Coast

Guard or the Service’s capability to perform these missions. This

is obviously critical since the lives of mariners, recreational boaters, and others often depend on the Coast Guard’s ability to perform these traditional missions.

Events in recent years have reminded us of the critical importance of the Coast Guard’s traditional missions. The Coast Guard

Search and Rescue mission was prominently displayed in the response to Katrina and Rita on the Gulf Coast last year. Likewise,

the Coast Guard has carried out activities to prevent and respond

to oil spills as part of the Service’s Marine Environmental Protection mission, including two major oil spills, one in the Delaware

River and one in Alaska. We, as a Nation, simply cannot afford to

allow any erosion of the Coast Guard’s ability to accomplish these

non-homeland security missions.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 also requires the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security to con-
2

duct an annual review of the Coast Guard’s mission performance,

with a particular emphasis on examining the Service’s performance

of non-homeland security missions.

In July of 2006, the report for fiscal year 2005 was published and

has important conclusions. The report indicated that the Coast

Guard’s mission resource hours, the number of flight hours for aircraft and underway hours for boats and cutters, has increased for

both its homeland security and non-homeland security missions. It

concluded, however, that the Coast Guard is within 4 percent of its

statistically projected maximum level of resource hours.

As a result, the Inspector General found that the Service ‘‘will be

unable to increase its total resource hours without the acquisition

of additional aircraft, cutters, and boats.’’ The report is saying that

we have reached the end of the road, we can’t squeeze anything

more out of these rapidly failing legacy assets. Consequently, it is

again evident that Congress must accelerate the production of new

Deepwater assets and the program itself.

I am truly concerned about the pace of Deepwater recapitalization. I again take this opportunity to urge my colleagues to support

funding levels that will not only allow the Coast Guard to acquire

the assets they need, but will allow the program to be accelerated

and brought online over the next 15 years rather than the 25 year

projected time line in the revised plan.

The report also revealed that, despite success in increasing mission hours, the Coast Guard still has room for improvement in its

performance. Although the report seems to indicate problems that

need to be addressed, I am mindful that the Coast Guard has only

a limited number of assets and personnel. I hope that the witnesses’ testimony will address whether the Coast Guard and the

Inspector General feel that the performance measures are accurately reflecting the job that the Service is doing, and I thank the

witnesses for coming this morning and look forward to their testimony.

Mr. Taylor, would you like to make any opening remarks?

Mr. TAYLOR. I think Mr. Baird did.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Baird, would you?

Mr. BAIRD. No.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Okay, we would like to welcome this morning

Rear Admiral Joseph Nimmich, the Assistant Commander for Policy and Planning of the United States Coast Guard, and Edward

Stulginsky from the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Audits,

Department of Homeland Security. Thank you for being here.

Admiral, please proceed.

TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL JOSEPH L. NIMMICH, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT FOR POLICY AND PLANNING, UNITED

STATES COAST GUARD; AND EDWARD STULGINSKY, DEPUTY

ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Admiral NIMMICH. Chairman LoBiondo, distinguished members

of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss Coast

Guard mission performance and balance.

Mr. Chairman, as you well know, the Coast Guard is an amalgamation of authorities, capabilities to protect our maritime nation.
3

Through 216 years of thoughtful consideration and legislative initiatives, we, I mean the Administration, the Congress, and Coast

Guard, have collectively built an organization to help guarantee, at

once, the safety, security, and the prudent stewardship of the maritime domain.

The Nation’s need for a prepared and ready Coast Guard is not

static. New challenges emerge as others are mitigated. The Coast

Guard must be steadfast in its character, but adaptive in its methods. Our mandate and responsibility, indeed our passion, is serving

the Nation with the best leadership, authorities, and capabilities

we can muster.

The Committee provides the oversight to ensure the Coast Guard

balances these mandates, and I am here today to provide you with

status of our efforts.

Let me take a moment to update you on a few recent cases that

serve to illuminate our steadfast character, adaptive methods, and

our commitment to balance as we strike across our roles of safety,

stewardship, and security.

When you discuss mission balance, there is no better example

than Hurricane Katrina. You are well aware of the extraordinary

lifesaving stories, but what you may not be aware of are the other

Coast Guard missions that were conducted simultaneously: Aids to

Navigation Unit surveyed, marked, and cleared waterways for reopening, ensuring the maritime transportation of relief supplies,

commercial use of waterways was restored within days; the Coast

Guard was mitigating the effects of what amounted to the second

largest hazardous spill in our Nation’s history; safety, security, and

stewardship concurrently, without the need for any declaration or

a rush to change authorities. Congress has already ensured alignment and investment in the right authorities for the Coast Guard.

The Katrina response was not an anomaly. Rather, it provided

many examples of multi-mission performance in a hazard of exceptional proportions. Literally every day there are significant examples of Coast Guard mission execution providing safety, security,

and stewardship in the maritime domain. Just recently we have responded to the Calcasieu River spill near Lake Charles, a 2 million

gallon spill of waste oil from a holding system. It shut down a 20

mile stretch of the Calcasieu River and the intercoastal waterway

in Southwest Louisiana. The potential impact on one of our largest

refineries was to be shut down. The Coast Guard led a partnership

with industry and government which worked to prioritize vessel

movements during the cleanup operations, keeping the refinery

open and ensuring effective cleanup.

Rescue 21 is living up to its purpose. In a single afternoon over

the 4th of July weekend, our sectors Tampa-St. Pete received seven

calls on the Rescue 21 system. Six of those were not received on

our legacy system, which was being run in parallel as a measure

of effectiveness.

Mr. Chairman, you have already seen, this past November, we

received a limited distress call from a mariner off the New Jersey

coast. He reported his position and we moved in that direction.

After using the Rescue 21 reconstructive direction finding capability, we redirected the assets over 20 miles, successfully recovering
4

three men in the early stages of hypothermia from the 60 degree

water.

In recent days we have had four seizures of drugs, over 11,000

pounds and 22 suspected drug smugglers.

Just last week, a Coast Guard C-130 observed a Republic of the

Marshall Islands flagged vessel illegally hauling nets in the

Howland-Baker U.S. economic exclusive zone. Coast Guard Cutter

Walnut, a buoy tender, pursued, boarded the vessel, and seized 500

tons of tuna on board.

And to my right you see the pictures of the Cargo ACE. As a result of shifting cargo and ballasting, the vessel went to an 80 degree list and threatened the total loss of its vessel, its cargo, and

over 2,000 gallons of fuel and petroleum products. Coast Guard-led

Unified Command ensured the rescue of all 23 crew members and

a salvage plan was instituted which mitigated all potential pollution. The vessel is safely on its way to the United States.

Steadfast in our character, adaptive in our methods, the Coast

Guard’s preparation in response to all hazards and threats is built

upon our principles: clear objectives, effective presence, unity of effort, on-scene initiative, flexibility, managed risks, and restraint.

Underpinning our drive towards mission balance and effective mission execution, through the blending of legislative authorities and

deliberate design of our capabilities, the Coast Guard is agile, effective force serving all our Nation’s maritime needs. Our holistic approach to mission execution provides the necessary focus: steadfast

in character, adaptive in methods.

Thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to answering

your questions.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you.

Mr. Stulginsky?

Mr. STULGINSKY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of

the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the

Coast Guard’s mission performance for fiscal year 2005.

My testimony today focuses on a review of the Coast Guard’s performance of its homeland security and non-homeland security missions, and addresses three issues: first, the total number of resource hours devoted to Coast Guard missions has increased; second, despite increases in resource hours, there is room for improving mission performance; and, third, barriers to improving mission

performance still exists.

Regarding mission hours, prior to fiscal year 2001, the non-homeland security missions represented the largest percentage of resource hours within the Coast Guard, using 62 percent of all resource hours. Following September 11th, 2001, the Coast Guard

dedicated a larger percentage of resource hours to homeland security missions than for non-homeland security missions, steadily increasing from 38 percent to 63 percent of total resource hours used

by fiscal year 2004. In fiscal year 2005, the percentage of resource

hours dedicated to non-homeland security missions increased for

the first time since fiscal year 2001.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Excuse me. Could you pull your mic a little closer?

Mr. STULGINSKY. Sure.
5

Coast Guard data also showed the total number of mission hours

have increased every year since fiscal year 2001. This has allowed

the Coast Guard to increase hours used on non-homeland security

missions to within 3 percent of pre-September 11th hours. Not only

are the total non-homeland security mission hours approaching

baseline levels, but individual missions that comprise the nonhomeland security category are also approaching the pre-9/11 levels

in the post-9/11 environment.

My second point is that, despite steadily increases in mission

hours, the Coast Guard is not meeting all of its performance goals.

The Coast Guard has been much more successful in meeting its

goals for its non-homeland security missions, meeting five of six

goals during fiscal year 2005. For example, the Coast Guard met

the 2005 goal for Search and Rescue by saving over 86 percent of

mariners who were in distress. For fiscal year 2005, the Coast

Guard met two of four goals for its homeland security missions.

Since fiscal year 2001, three missions—a legal drug interdiction,

undocumented migrant interdiction, and other law enforcement—

have met goals in only two of the five years.

In addition, the Coast Guard only recently developed a performance measure for Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security mission.

This mission is by far the largest user of resource hours of any

Coast Guard mission. The key concern regarding this newly established risk-based performance measure is its subjectivity and, as

such, the measure may restrict the measure’s usefulness for evaluative purposes.

My last point is that the Coast Guard faces major barriers to improving or sustaining mission performance. These barriers include:

that growth and resource hours has leveled off; the Coast Guard

has limited and finite assets to respond to a crisis; and, three, the

Coast Guard lacks a comprehensive performance management system

The first barrier to improve performance is that growth in total

Coast Guard resource hours, although significantly greater than

baseline levels, has leveled off. The increase in total hours from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2005 was less than 1.5 percent, and

total resource hours for the Coast Guard are reaching a maximum.

Based on resource hour data, coupled with Coast Guard’s limited

and finite level of aircraft, cutter, and boats, the Coast Guard will

be unable to increase its total resource hours without the acquisition of additional aircraft, cutters, and boats.

The second barrier is that the Coast Guard has a limited and finite number of assets, and, therefore, available resource hours to

respond to an extended crisis. With no additional reserve assets for

use in catastrophic situations, the Coast Guard must use resource

hours normally dedicated to other missions to respond to crises and

to meet often drastically changing mission priorities. For example,

in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard deployed

over one-third of its aviation assets from all over the Country to

the Gulf Coast to aid in search and rescue operations. In moving

these assets to the Gulf Coast, the Coast Guard did incur additional risks throughout the rest of the Country, such as fewer

counter-drug, fisheries enforcement, and migrant interdiction operations conducted in the Caribbean and off the coast of Florida.
6

Lastly, in September 2004, we reported that the lack of a comprehensive performance management system impedes the Coast

Guard’s ability to gage its performance, allocate resources effectively, and target areas for improved performance. In addition, we

stated that the workload demands on the Coast Guard would continue to increase and require experienced and trained personnel,

contradicting recent declining experience levels among its personnel. We also stated that sustaining a high operating tempo, due to

growing homeland security and national emergency demands,

would further tax the Coast Guard’s infrastructure, including its

aging cutter and aircraft fleet.

For all Coast Guard missions, the Coast Guard has been sustaining performance through increases in resource hours. Much of the

credit is due to the dedication and perseverance of the men and

women of the Coast Guard. We remain concerned, however, that

the Coast Guard is nearing its resource hour capacity, a situation

that could significantly limit the Coast Guard’s ability to ‘‘squeeze

out’’ any more resource hours from its existing assets to ensure the

capability and readiness to respond to the effects of future environmental crises or major terrorist attacks. To improve performance,

the Coast Guard must ensure that a comprehensive performance

management system is implemented and that its personnel have

the training, experience, equipment, and infrastructure needed to

perform its homeland security and non-homeland security missions.

That concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any

questions the Subcommittee may have.

Mr. LOBIONDO. We thank you very much. We are going to start

with Mr. Filner.

Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would just like my

opening statement to be made part of the record.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Without objection.

Mr. FILNER. Ever since we created the Department of Homeland

Security, we have expressed our hope and our understanding that

the Coast Guard would continue its traditional missions while adding on the new homeland security missions. And as the report that

the Inspector General referred to, there seems to be a reduction in

the traditional missions and the resources given. For example, in

the President’s proposed budget, we are cutting funding or he proposes to cut funding for Marine Safety programs and for Search

and Rescue missions. So the balance of that Coast Guard mission

is of concern to us, and there are some areas within that safety

mission of yours that I just want to ask some questions about and

see if you have the resources to continue to do that in the manner

that you have traditionally done it.

As you know, by law, all vessels over 65 feet and all towing vessels over 26 feet have to have so-called AIS, or automatic identification system, onboard as of January 1st of last year if the vessel operates on the navigable waters of the United States. But the Coast

Guard regulations only requires AIS if the vessel operates in an

area where the Coast Guard operates its vessel traffic service. So

I guess my first question is when is the Coast Guard going to enforce the law and require these collision avoidance systems on all

the vessels, regardless of where they operate?

Admiral?
7

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. We continue to refine the regulatory

framework by which AIS requirements are driven down. Initially,

it was indicated only in the VTS areas because that is the only

area we had to be able to ensure enforcement by observing it. As

we expand the nationwide AIS coverage, we are equally expanding

the regulatory framework to ensure that those requirements are

met, sir.

Mr. FILNER. So you are going to get to this at some point. But

the law says as of January last year they had to have these systems. Why aren’t we enforcing the law as it exists?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, we have not completed the coverage of the

Country and AIS enhancement that we can see whether they have

it or not. So you can’t enforce something that you don’t—can’t see.

So as we enclose the Country in the AIS capture net, we are expanding the enforcement of that.

Mr. FILNER. Well, I think this was meant for the safety of the

vessels themselves, right?

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, it is.

Mr. FILNER. And, I mean, it sounds like you are saying that you

are not going to enforce the law until you have the capability to

enforce the law. But our question is what resources do you need so

you can enforce the existing law?

Admiral NIMMICH. You have given us the resources to complete

the AIS enhancement around the Country. We have gone out with

the request for proposals on that and we are continuing to close

that net, sir. The law exists, and if we are on board a vessel and

board them, but without boarding them, until the AIS is closed, I

can’t tell you that they in fact are abiding by the law or not abiding

by the law.

Mr. FILNER. So when do you expect to be able to completely enforce the law?

Admiral NIMMICH. By the end of 2007, early 2008, sir.

Mr. FILNER. Three years after the law. I will come back to that.

Let me ask you a couple other things.

By law, all vessels over 65 feet and towing vessels over 26 feet,

the same as the previous requirement, must have an electronic

chart system onboard, and that begins next year. Have you yet, or

when is the schedule for prescribing these requirements for the

electronic charts so that they can operate in compliance with the

law?

Admiral NIMMICH. I can’t answer that, sir. I will get you an answer for the record.

Mr. FILNER. So you don’t know when you will be able to enforce

the law that is supposed to be enforced next year?

Admiral NIMMICH. I will have to go back to our law enforcement

office to identify what their enforcement regime is or protocols are,

and I don’t have that currently in front of me, so I will answer that

for the record.

Mr. FILNER. Well, I am informed—by the way, these answers are

a little bit disconcerting because if you look at another active that

we passed in 1988, the Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Act,

which required such things as stability tests, We are now 18 years

and you still haven’t prescribed those standards, as I understand

it. Does the Coast Guard have the resources or the capability of
8

regulating these marine safety standards, or does it have to be

done, say, by the Department of Transportation, which does other

safeties for other modes of transportation?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, we continue to enforce the marine safety

regulations to the capacity that we have. We are continuing always

to refine and improve the regulatory framework and the capacity

that we have to do it, and we do very closely look at the fishing

industry as one of our areas to ensure that there is compliance.

Mr. FILNER. Well, Mr. Chairman, if the testimony is that one law

18 years old, another law 3 years old, another law about to take

effect, and they don’t have the resources or the capability of enforcing this, I think that is a pretty big concern that we have to look

at, sir.

Admiral NIMMICH. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would be glad to

bring our law enforcement expertise over to report back to Mr. Filner on the activities on those three events.

Mr. LOBIONDO. I think that would be very important, Admiral.

Mr. FILNER. Thank you.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Admiral, the OIG report indicates that the Coast

Guard is within 4 percent of its statistically projected maximum

level of resource hours and that, as a result, the Coast Guard will

be unable to increase its total resource hours without acquisition

of additional assets. With the vessels and aircraft deteriorating at

the expected gap where less assets will gradually be available and

Deepwater assets still are not online, we have got a chart that we

put up showing this gap—

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, I am familiar with the chart.

Mr. LOBIONDO.—with the patrol boats, how are we going to do

this? It looks like it is impossible.

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, it is the allocation of scarcity that the

Coast Guard has faced since 1790. We have never had 100 percent

of the mission assets that we have always thought we would need

to make every mission completely successful. We balance that

through a risk-based decision-making process where we look at the

best impact that we can have across what the highest risk the

Country faces. So we allocate those assets to those highest risks.

The newer assets that we get have more capacity or more capability—not capacity, but more capability. Asset hours are not an appropriate single reflection of our ability to perform. As we bring

new assets on, like our 47 footers, our 87 footers, they have more

capability than the assets they replaced. So a pure asset hour to

asset hour comparison is not a fair assessment of our ability to perform.

Additionally, sir, we are doing better at partnering with our

other law enforcement entities, trying to identify where we have

similar requirements, similar authorities, and not duplicate effort,

but ensure that each of us knows what the other law enforcement

entity is providing.

So through those methods we will try to mitigate as much of the

gap as we can. But I can’t tell you that there won’t be some degradation in performance during those gap periods.

Mr. LOBIONDO. It seems it will be unfortunate that we won’t

really know about them until there is something really bad that

gets reported because of our inability to respond.
9

Okay, let me move on. Other than mission hours, what are the

best methods of measuring the Coast Guard’s mission performance?

You touched on this a little bit.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. As you know, we have a series of

mission indicators and standards that we try to meet. I will use the

example of Search and Rescue. As the IG indicated, we met our

Search and Rescue standard last year, at 85 percent of mariners

in distress. As we identify improved systems like Rescue 21, which

is not an asset hour, but gives us the ability to more effectively respond, we take those asset hours and use them in other places.

At the same time, we continue to modify and monitor our performance, and have increased our standard to 87 percent because

we think we can do better. Our standards are always set as a

stretch goal. We don’t anticipate always meeting every standard

every year. We continue to try to find ways to do business better,

but we also challenge ourselves to provide more capacity and more

product to the Country. In terms of Search and Rescue, we have

increased our goal because we were meeting our goal. The Rescue

21 allows us to be more efficient.

Mr. LOBIONDO. How will the Coast Guard’s taking over of the enforcement of the no-fly zone in the National Capitol Region affect

its other missions, in your view?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, if you note in our 2007 budget, we have

a request in there for the procurement of green aircraft. Those

green aircraft will come in and go through our PDM lines to become standard Coast Guard aircraft. In the meantime, while they

are being upgraded, we will use seasonal variations in our workload to address it, as well as continuing the HITRON contract to

its next—we were anticipating not exercising the last option year,

and we will exercise that option year to give us that capacity that

we were going to fill back with standard Coast Guard aircraft.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Admiral.

Mr. Oberstar?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this hearing.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you for joining us.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I very much appreciate your vigilance over Coast

Guard activities, and Mr. Filner as well, and our colleague, Mr.

Taylor, whose eye is always on the coast and the Coast Guard.

Admiral, this past summer, beginning of August, the Coast

Guard published a notice in the Federal Register of establishing 34

zones in the Great Lakes where they would undertake live fire

training missions for your various training purposes, the first time

anything like that has been undertaken on the waters of the Great

Lakes. I received a number of expressions of concerns from people

throughout the Lakes, from Cleveland all the way to even in Lake

Ontario, all the way to Lake Superior, and, along with others, appealed to the Coast Guard for an extension of time of the comment

period on the notice.

But then, this week, the Coast Guard sends a vessel out off two

harbors in Security Zone 6 and starts firing within view of a pleasure craft, who had been notified about this but didn’t realize it was

going to be within eyesight. And they called the local newspaper
10

and then the reporter got on the story and started calling around

to people, asking their comments, and what is going on here.

Isn’t it inconsistent, with extension of comment period, for the

Coast Guard then to go and undertake within the comment period

the activity upon which comment is to be received?

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. We have not done a very good job of

being able to communicate both the need and our desire for fixed

Security Zones. We have, starting in 2004, when we made an

agreement with the Canadian Coast Guard that we would arm our

vessels as part of our homeland security mission and the need to

make sure that all of our borders had the capacity to deal with any

type of an issue that would impact the national security, we went

about not only arming the boats, but you have to train, and you

have to train in the environment in which you are going to use

those boats. We have been conducting live fire exercises since the

beginning of January of this year.

The purpose of the fixed Security Zones was to move away from

random Security Zones that we create when we have to do a live

fire, to a zone that is more aware for the public that a live fire

could occur there. You have to activate the zone, the fixed zone in

order to create that live fire.

We have been discussing this for the last year or so. We were not

very forthcoming with the notice of rulemaking on that. Based on

your input and Representative Hoekstra, we have in fact extended

the deadline, and I am happy to report that the operational commander is in holding for our listening sessions within the Great

Lakes, one in each sector that he has throughout the Great Lakes.

Mr. OBERSTAR. It seems he has also been holding a shooting session while the comment is going on.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, but we have been shooting since the

beginning of January.

Mr. OBERSTAR. But that is inconsistent with a comment period,

to then go out and do the thing upon which comment is invited.

Admiral NIMMICH. But the comment, sir, is not about whether

we should shoot. The comment is on a fixed zone. We have to shoot

in that environment. And the comment was to create fixed zones

rather than, every time we go out for a live fire, that we have to

create an arbitrary zone that the public may have less knowledge

of than publishing and putting on the charts that there is a fixed

zone where we fire.

It is confusing. The operational commander has canceled the live

fire that he had for today, and it is under review at this point in

time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. The Air National Guard and, before them, the

U.S. Air Force, when they had an active mission in Duluth, had firing zones over land and over Lake Superior. Those zones were published, noticed to the public, comment period was established, public comment was received, and when it was all received and evaluated, only then did the Air National Guard and the active Air

Force begin their training missions.

Then, when they decided they needed to change this zone and

shift it a little bit—of course, this is parenthetical to my point—

they were going to go over Luomo’s Chicken Ranch, and the owner

called and said, do you realize how much of a liability the Air Force
11

is going to have if they run those airplanes over my chicken farm?

I have got 100,000 of them. They will scare the hell out of them;

they will all roll over and die. The Air Force and the Air National

Guard sent teams down to look at the chicken ranch and decided

that they would move the zone.

And then they moved it over the Boundary Waters Canoe Area

Wilderness. I said, do you realize you will be violating the air space

reservation over the wilderness and you might scare the hell out

of canoeists going out in that area? And they adjusted it again.

They seemed to be much more responsive to public opinion than

the Coast Guard in undertaking this activity. I urge you to withhold the live fire activities until further comment such as concerns

from environmental groups, the Izaak Walton League and others,

who are concerned about—including the mayor of Duluth—about

lead deposits in these zones and what the effect might be on aquatic life? Have you made that evaluation?

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, we have done two environmental assessments that are available online. They are being made available

as part of the comment period. Both of those show that the impact

has minimal effect on those large bodies of water in terms of safety

to human life or the environment that they are in.

But I do want to stress that the operational commander, who is

responsible for the readiness of his units—and these units on the

Great Lakes, although they are operating on the Great Lakes

today, may be asked to operate in the New Orleans environment

tomorrow, and they need to be able to be sent as a completely prepared unit—he has canceled the gun execs that he had planned for

today.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, I appreciate that. I will have to take a look

at the environmental impact statement. Some people seem to think

that Lake Superior is so big it can absorb any amount of material

deposited in that water. I will remind you that the Great Lakes are

one-fifth of all the fresh water on the face of the earth. Lake Superior is equal to the volume of the other four Great Lakes combined.

That whatever you deposit on the bottom of that lake, 135 feet

below the surface, is below the thermoclime, and waters do not

turn over, and that pollution, whatever it is, polluted material or

inert material, is going to stay there.

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, I will make sure we provide your staff

those two studies that were done. And I am also proud to tell you

that I do understand a significant portion of Lake Superior. I had

the honor to sail on Lake Superior for over two years.

[The information received follows:]

The study that was conducted is titled, ′′Preliminary Health Risk Assessment

for Proposed U.S. Coast Guard Weapons Training Exercises′′, and is publicly

available as part of electronic docket number 25767. The docket can be found

at http://dms.dot.gov

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, that is terrific; you do have an appreciation

of that. So then why couldn’t you just—why couldn’t the Coast

Guard operate these training missions on a regularized schedule so

that people who are using the lakes will be on notice not to enter

and to stay within some safe distance of the safety zones?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, the problem with standardized schedules,

as you well know, is the weather on Lake Superior and on all the
12

lakes. You can schedule it for a day. We had this gunner exercise

you are referring to scheduled for earlier, the week before, when

there would have been even less traffic in the area, but the weather didn’t permit it. So you are constrained by weather. There are

multiple factors of why you can’t say you are specifically going to

shoot on a specific time or period.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, you could still announce it and then announce that we have to change the date. It would seem to me a

regularized schedule at least puts the public on notice, and I would

like you to give that some further consideration.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, we will take that into consideration.

Mr. OBERSTAR. You referenced agreement with the Canadians.

There has long been a prohibition by Canadian government on

armed vessels entering Canadian waters. What is the nature of

your agreement with the Canadians, does it permit armed Coast

Guard vessels enter into Canadian waters?

Admiral NIMMICH. The 1817 agreement, which was actually

made with the United Kingdom, that has transferred over to the

Canadians, talks about not having any arms on the Great Lakes

at all. Our agreement is to have U.S. vessels armed in U.S. waters.

[The information received follows:]

The United States and Canada reached an understanding in 2003 interpreting

the 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement. This understanding provides that U.S. Coast

Guard vessels may be armed in U.S. internal waters of the Great Lakes. However, U.S. Coast Guard vessels located in the Great Lakes will have any such

armament dismantled and safely stowed when they are in Canadian waters or

ports.

Mr. OBERSTAR. So you have not reached an agreement about entering Canadian waters, but only the agreement of 1817 with respect to all waters.

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, I will confirm that for the record, that in

fact we can—whether we can or cannot enter Canadian waters

with armed vessels.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Could you provide the Committee at

this moment an update on the inquiry into the incident with the

Healy in Alaskan waters?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, as you know, we had the very unfortunate

death of two of our Coast Guard members on a diving operation off

the Coast Guard Healy in the Arctic. As a result of—

Mr. OBERSTAR. Excuse me, Admiral, but that occurred the night

before the hundredth anniversary of the Two Harbors Lighthouse,

where a Coast Guard contingent from Duluth came to participate,

and I asked for a moment of silence because I had been notified

of the death just the night before, and the commander of the Duluth Coast Guard unit had been in command of the HEALY and

had trained one of the Coast Guard personnel, a young woman, and

certified her diving capability, and he was shaken, he was in tears

over that incident. So I would like to know where the inquiry

stands.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. The investigation is still in process.

Admiral Allen has assured that the Committee will have it at the

earliest opportunity. But I am not able to speak to the investigation, it has not been made available to me, sir.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, one of the issues is that the first story was

that they were diving to try to understand why a commercial vessel
13

was stuck in the ice, and then that story was retracted and the

story promulgated was that they were on a training mission. Well,

either a vessel was stuck in the ice or it wasn’t.

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, as you know, a lot of the first reports are

often erroneous, with the desire to get information out as soon as

possible. Admiral Wooster quickly assessed the situation. He felt

that because of the impact on the crew, he had lost confidence in

the commanding officer, so he has relieved him during the period

of the investigation. And I don’t want to conjecture on things that

I don’t have knowledge of between now. It really requires me to

wait for the investigation to be completed. But we will provide that

at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. I very much look forward to seeing

that report, as will Chairman Young, with whom I discussed the

matter yesterday.

One final point is I think one of the objectives of this hearing is

to understand the Coast Guard’s distribution of resources in personnel, equipment, and funding to meet its balance its homeland

security mission requirements with its traditional historical line

missions of safety and service to sailing. But the Coast Guard is

spending more time on missions than it has historically done, and

that much of that time, maybe even a preponderance of that time,

is spent on homeland security.

One of the issues that Chairman Young and I and others on this

Committee—I think Mr. LoBiondo also raised—when the Homeland Security Department was being created, was that, first of all,

the Coast Guard should not be included in this mish-mash Department of Homeland Security. Secondly, there should be a clear delineation of its homeland security function from Search and Rescue,

Safety at Sea, buoy tending, and all the rest that the Coast Guard

does so superbly. And when that is done, adequately resources allocated to the Coast Guard to carry out this additional function.

And over the years that I have served in Congress, in 1974—

1975, actually sworn in in 1975—we have added 27 missions to the

Coast Guard, but we have never fully funded those missions. And

this is another one that has not been adequately funded. It seems

to me that our concerns are being borne out, our prediction of inadequate resources for the Coast Guard to carry out this function are

bearing out, and you are in the unenviable position of having to defend the Coast Guard’s performance against a diminishing resource

base.

You may want to take the Fifth Amendment on that, I don’t

know.

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, what I would point out is that we continue to monitor all of our missions and the performance, the effectiveness, not necessarily the asset hours that are reflected on each

mission. We continue to work very closely. If you take boating safety, you don’t see hours reflected in the IG’s report for what the auxiliary does to ensure that boaters are trained, that we have reduced

the number of accidents and reduced the number of deaths that

way. We take a holistic approach to how we look at our mission

sets and try to partner and utilize our assets, but also other methodologies of getting the performance that the American public ex-
14

pects from us. And we do the best we can based on a risk-based

approach with what we are giving.

Mr. OBERSTAR. You are doing the best you can under the limited

circumstances.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the extended time.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Oberstar.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral, I would like to shift gears and ask you a couple of planning questions based on the events of last year about this time.

One of the things that hit me that will be no more than—the

generals and the admirals that appear before Armed Services have

pretty well convinced me that we are probably going to live to see

a weapons of mass destruction attack on the United States. Given

that so many of our major cities are on the waterfront somewhere—Los Angeles, New York, Miami, New Orleans. And given

what happened last year with Katrina and the shortages of fuel,

ice, berthing, what kind of lists has the Coast Guard prepared to

hand over to the DOD or the Department of Homeland Security as

far as resources that are available?

And I will start with the analogy what really happened in the

case of Mississippi, the dire need for fuel. You know, there wasn’t

electricity for 200 miles in any direction for a few days. So that

means every gas station is out, all the jobbers are out, many of the

waterfront facilities, their pumps went under water, so the case of

Murphy Oil in New Orleans, the place is just scattered.

And one of the things that hit me—your roads are blocked with

trees. Even the ones that are opened are usually open down to one

lane, a lot of zigging and zagging, almost impossible to get a tanker

truck through. And it hit me later that, geezum, there are companies in the business of underway replenishment of ships that have

their own generators onboard. And instead of fighting to get these

trucks down one at a time at the eyedropper approach, one barge

load of diesel, one barge load of gasoline would have kept every

emergency vehicle going for a month.

So, to that end, since you are in the position or since the Coast

Guard is in the positions of licensing these operations, what kind

of list do you keep on them? To what extent do you coordinate with

Homeland Security that these things are available? To what extent

do you coordinate with the coastal counties, Orleans Parish, Harrison County, Mississippi to let them know that these sort of things

are available when their local jobbers go out?

And in addition to that, I am fairly certain that you also license

quarter boats. I remember a conversation I had both with Admiral

Mullin, the CNO, and with Lieutenant General Steven Blum, the

Chief of the Guard Bureau when I am making that call to them

we need help, I found it really interesting that both of them, within

the first couple of sentences, said where can I put my people. And

for a couple of reasons. Number one, it meant that they had lost

contact with the bases down there. But also what a serious consideration that is when you are trying to get people in there in a

hurry so that they can go to work, rather than spending their time

putting together their own barracks or their own housing.
15

So to what extent do you keep track of the quarter boats, of the

river boats like the Mississippi Queen and the other boats that

have berthing available? To what extent do you keep track of the

underway refueling services? And how do you pass that information off to the Department of Homeland Security? And the other

thing I really found about FEMA is that they are all rookies. There

is a very, very small core of professional FEMA employees. They

call on people from AG, they get people out of Forestry, they get

people all over the place, none of whom knew their job. And they

are certainly not going to know about these assets unless you hand

it to them and say if you need fuel, you call this guy; if you knew

berthing, you call this guy.

There used to be—I don’t know if it is still there. There used to

be a barge that would travel the Mississippi River delivering water

to the ships. My God, we are flying in bottles of water in helicopters from upstate. What would one barge load of potable water

have done for some of these communities?

So, again, a little bit different than what you wanted to talk

about today, but I don’t get that many opportunities to see you

face-to-face, and I think these are things that we ought to be addressing now, before it happens.

Admiral NIMMICH. Congressman Taylor, I am very comfortable

answering the question for you. And you have actually asked me

what I see as two different elements of it. One is how do we support FEMA with that information and those resources that we

have, and to help DoD bring those resources to the battle. And it

is actually supporting FEMA through several of the emergency

support functions, ESF-1 on transportation, ESF-10 on hazardous

materials, all of the different ESFs. And we have Coast Guard personnel that are trained and go into all of those different segments.

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, if I may.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Just in case there is a county emergency operator

watching this or watching this tonight on C-SPAN, and you are

going to ESF. You have to shoot over most congressmen’s head,

shoot over my head, I beg you shoot over his head.

Admiral NIMMICH. An Emergency Support Function Coordinator.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay, so, again, for the guy who is in charge of

emergency operations for Harrison County, Mississippi, Jackson

County, Hancock County, Orleans Parish, what can you bring to

the table so that he has got a number to call to say, you know

what, I need a barge load of fuel?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, we do that on a regular basis. All of the

training exercises that we have held in Mississippi with your

Emergency Operations Centers, they set up these emergency support functions and Coast Guard personnel sit in them with the

knowledge of what we can bring to the fight. And if you look

back—

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay, let’s go back a year. Did you do that last

year? Because I don’t think you did.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, we did.

Mr. TAYLOR. I am going to—in the case of Hancock County, Mississippi, I know you didn’t.

Admiral NIMMICH. Not at the county level; at the State level, sir.
16

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, let me walk you through this. In Bay Saint

Louis, Mississippi, I couldn’t call a golf board, I couldn’t call my

governor—I could call you—because the local links were down. So

I really do think you have to disseminate it on a county by county

basis. No one could have imagined that on one day the Biloxi

Bridge would be gone, the Bay Saint Louis Bridge would be gone,

the I-10 Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain is gone. All these roads

that we thought would be there under any circumstance are gone.

So we got bit one time by the unimaginable. We sure as heck better

be prepared for it next time.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. And not to be too overly confident

here. One of the things you are asking me to do as a Federal entity

is to circumvent the State and go to the county level, and I can’t

do that. I have to work through the State infrastructure to support

that county. Governor Barbour would not particularly want the

Coast Guard to go into the county EOC; he wants us in the State

EOC to ensure that we can support the County.

Mr. TAYLOR. But, Admiral, I am just telling you there was no

communication between the State EOC and Hancock County. I

know that for an absolute fact. So you are setting yourself up for

that mistake again.

Now, I am a big believer if the dog bites me once, it is the dog’s

fault. If the dog bites me a second time, it is my fault.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. I am telling you of something that happened.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. And I am asking you to keep it from happening

again, and you are telling me, in effect, you are going to let it happen again.

Admiral NIMMICH. I understand what you are telling me, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. I mean, how hard is it to put together a list of

these? Are the folks we have underway replenishment capabilities,

with their own generators onboard and their own pumps onboard?

Admiral NIMMICH. We can provide that list without having a

Coast Guard representative at any county that would like the list,

sir. But the other issue you have got is the infrastructure to be able

to utilize that. When you are talking about the City of New Orleans, the Iwo Jima can tie up at the pier and provide generator capabilities, water capabilities. When you are talking about the

shoreline of the Mississippi, to get that from there to part of the

infrastructure is a much more difficult process. It can be done, but

it is a much more difficult process, as you know, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. And it also reminds you that we hijacked the Iwo

Jima and got it off a ship because of our district needs. So, again,

if your plan is just for one of these things, I mean, we have been

through this.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. And, to the best of my knowledge, no one died for

lack of medical care, but we came mighty close. To the best of my

knowledge, no one died of starvation. We came mighty close. To the

best of my knowledge, no one died of dehydration. We came way

too close on all of these things. And I do think we can do better,

and you have those resources at your fingertips. All I am asking

is that you share that information with the folks who are going to
17

need it in an instantaneous basis the next time this happens. I

think that is a pretty reasonable request.

Admiral NIMMICH. I think that is reasonable, sir, and we will be

glad to provide the information we have with every one of the counties, yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, sir.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR. I am well over my time. I think you need to ask the

Chairman.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I just want to ask what is the interface between

the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the State and the county in the issue

that the gentleman from Mississippi raised.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. The way the interface works is

FEMA is the responsible entity of the Federal Government to coordinate the Federal response. They do that through a series of

emergency support functions such as transportation, such as medical, such as commodities, and moving commodities or restoring infrastructure. The Coast Guard supports those ESFs, as well as

doing our normal efforts that are required by our legislation, not

by anything else. The search and rescue that you saw in New Orleans, those are Coast Guard functions that we do whether there is

a declared emergency or not. The Coast Guard supports FEMA and

works through FEMA to provide those services, sir, and it normally

provides from the Federal Government through the State entity,

and the State directs where the Federal Government should provide those resources down to the county level. It is the Federal

Government support the State the way it is supposed to work, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, you have been very generous and,

Admiral, you have been very generous with your time, but, again—

the last time I am going to mention this—you flew in a crackerjack

reserve captain by the name of Ed Stanton either the day after the

storm or the day after that, and he did a very good job with the

resources he had. But not to belabor it, if he would have showed

up with a list, say starting from Panama City and maybe going as

far as Houston, of saying these guys are in the underway replenishment business. We all know the storm is not going to hit everywhere. In this instance we knew that most of Coastal Louisiana

was out, all of Coastal Mississippi was out. But if we had the name

of a guy in Pensacola or Panama City, or maybe even Mobile that

could have brought in barge loads of fuel, we would have been a

week ahead of ourselves in the recovery.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. And, again, if it is a weapon of mass destruction,

it is going to be even worse.

Admiral NIMMICH. What we have done—and I think you keep referring back to the capacity of the Department of Defense, and

being able to bring that capacity more rapidly to the fight or to the

event. And what we have done—and I say we, this is Homeland Security through FEMA—have created prescripted mission assignments, and those prescripted mission assignments not only identify

where those assets are, but how we can expedite DoD’s process to

be able to get them to the fight as quickly as possible.

Mr. TAYLOR. Former Congressman Paul McHale has that job at

the DoD, and he is a very sharp guy. But I have got to tell you,
18

when I brought this up with him a couple months ago, he really

wasn’t aware of these capabilities. And that is why I am asking

you, because you are aware of them, to work with him—

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir, we will continue to work—

Mr. TAYLOR.—so we are better prepared next time.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.

I would like to ask unanimous consent that Mrs. Kelly be allowed to sit on the Committee for the hearing. Without objection.

Mrs. Kelly.

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral, I want to congratulate you on a lot of the very good

work that the Coast Guard does. We, two weeks ago, reenacted the

crossing of the Hudson River with George Washington, and there

were five boats oared by volunteers crossing, and the Coast Guard

did an excellent job, because the boats are very, very tippy and the

river is very swift where Washington chose to cross. So I thank you

for not only the quality of support there, but also for the many

things that I know you do on the high seas to keep us all safe along

the coast.

You and I have discussed this river, and right there where Washington crosses is the Indian Point Nuclear Facility. In May you

agreed with my assessment that the tugboat that the Coast Guard

is using right now is simply inadequate to provide proper support

for protection of the nuclear facility. That nuclear facility that I

represent is the Nation’s top nuclear target as far as the terrorists

go, we all know that. Since then, since May, as you are aware, this

Committee passed the 2007 Coast Guard reauthorization bill which

included language, that I authorized, clarifying the Coast Guard’s

role as the lead Federal agency for protection of nuclear power facilities on navigable waterways. The provision also provided for the

coordination between the Coast Guard and the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission to try to better safeguard these facilities and other facilities like Indian Point.

The nuclear facilities that are located near navigable waters

truly need an upgrade from the Coast Guard in their protection,

and I believe that this provision that we passed is going to go a

long way toward protecting a segment of our Nation’s energy. And

I am going to continue to work with this Committee and Chairman

LoBiondo, as I have before, to make sure we champion and support

the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program and make sure it is included

in the negotiations with the Senate.

But, sir, since 9/11, we know how difficult it can sometimes be

for two Federal agencies to coordinate plans. And while I have

great confidence in the Coast Guard, I can’t say the same for the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So I would like to ask where we

are today with how the Coast Guard is going to implement the

changes that we called for in our resolution and the vote that we

passed.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, ma’am. I was just confirming to make

sure I had a correct assessment that the authorization act for 2007

that was passed by the House is in conference with the Senate

right now.
19

Mrs. KELLY. That is just what I said, Admiral.

Admiral NIMMICH. I am sorry. It has not been enacted as of yet.

We appreciate your leadership and your support. Clearly, the

Committee has expressed their concern and we look forward to continuing to work to ensure that the Committee is comfortable with

the security of the power plants. But with regard to Section 212,

I need to stress that it is our role to support the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are still the primary agency by which security of nuclear power plants resides. And we believe that we already have a lot of cooperation with them and will continue to provide and receive assistance from other Federal and States. As you

know, the State has taken some significant efforts there and we

continue to support them.

Mrs. KELLY. Well, the State—the New York naval militia has

two brand new boats, but you and I agreed, when you were here

before, that what was needed was a boat that was capable of sustaining a fixed piece of artillery that was no less than 25 millimeters, because that is the only thing—that or more—that can stop

a speeding boat intent on blowing up especially the edge of the nuclear plant, the river edge. So who is supposed to—help me here.

Who is supposed to be asking for this? Is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or is this something you could just go ahead and

do, get us a bigger boat and put some fixed armament on it? Because right now all we have got is sidearms.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, ma’am. And we work with the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission to identify the security needs of the Indian

Point Power Plant, and they have not indicated or we have not

come to an agreement on what the waterborne security requirements necessarily need to be there.

Mrs. KELLY. Well, I have just spoken with the new chairman of

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I will bring that up again

with him, and maybe we can get the two of you together. Thank

you very much.

And I appreciate so much, Mr. Chairman, your allowing me to

sit in on this.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Once again, Mrs. Kelly, we are more than happy

to accommodate you.

Admiral, one more question on the no-fly zone for the Capitol Region. Question at the request of Mr. Hoekstra, who sits on this

Committee and, of course, is Chair of the Intelligence Committee:

Next spring, what is going to happen with the seasonal helicopters?

Most importantly, he is concerned about out of Muskegon, Michigan, how we are going to meet the mission and what is going to

happen to that seasonal helicopter that is being used.

Admiral NIMMICH. Yes, sir. As I had indicated in how we are responding to the standup of the National Capitol Region protection,

we are using seasonal assets that we will bring in to stand up the

initial. Those will—across the board we will balance our aircraft

fleet to ensure that we meet all of the requirements that we have

attested and that we have set out for ourselves. So we will look at

through our training commands, through other air stations to ensure that we meet all of the requirements that we have, that the

Committee has given us to meet with aviation standards.
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Mr. LOBIONDO. But I am assuming to meet the mission right

now there is one of the helicopters out of Michigan that is being

borrowed, is that—

Admiral NIMMICH. That is correct, sir.

Mr. LOBIONDO. So you are just going to have to—he is going to

have to trust us that by next summer it gets back to him?

Admiral NIMMICH. We will take additional aircraft out of the

PDM line, our maintenance line and out of our training commands

to backfill them if we have not gotten enough aircraft up to refill

that right away, sir.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Stulginsky, just one or two quick questions. We are talking

about this mission capability, and I have got just a serious concern.

Will you once again just talk to me a little bit about, in your view,

is the Coast Guard sustaining its full range of missions?

Mr. STULGINSKY. If you look at how they are accomplishing their

performance measures, they are. If you look at the mission hours

associated with each one of those missions, we see Coast Guard in

the non-homeland security missions approach the pre-9/11 mission

hours. So it appears from the data available that they are meeting

their missions.

Mr. LOBIONDO. I guess pretty tough to project a couple years

from now, in your opinion, what that will look like?

Mr. STULGINSKY. It is. You know, as we mentioned in our report

that Coast Guard has very little bench strength to call on, so there

are no more assets available to apply to the missions. Coast Guard

is having difficulty maintaining their cutters, for example. They are

operating a lot of hours. It will be up to Coast Guard to do the

maintenance necessary to keep them operating. It is going to be a

challenge in the future, yes.

Mr. FILNER. Would the Chairman yield for a moment?

Mr. LOBIONDO. I will turn it over to you.

Mr. FILNER. Just to follow up on the Chairman’s question. You

said are they meeting their mission goals. I am just looking at your

report and it says the Coast Guard met only 26 percent of its performance goals in fiscal year 2005 for its homeland security mission. Let’s see. And then, over time, only Aids to Navigation and

Marine Environment achieve the established goals of the five year

period; and seven of the remaining missions did not consistently

meet goals. So how can you say that they met the goals?

Mr. STULGINSKY. The gap between the actual performance and

the goal is very narrow.

Mr. FILNER. Is what?

Mr. STULGINSKY. Is very narrow. For example, in Migrant Interdiction, their goal was to apprehend—

Mr. FILNER. The goal was to save three lives. They only saved

two. The third person is going to have a little bit of a problem with

it.

Mr. STULGINSKY. Yes, but they are meeting their Search and

Rescue goal. But Migrant Interdiction their goal was 88 percent;

they are roughly about 86 percent. So they are two percentage

points—

Mr. FILNER. How about Drug Interdiction, what was the goal?
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Mr. STULGINSKY. Drug Interdiction, less than 19 percent, making

it through the gap.

Mr. FILNER. The goal? I am sorry, what was the goal for Drug

Interdiction?

Mr. STULGINSKY. Percentage of cocaine moved—the total estimated cocaine entering the U.S. through the maritime means, less

than 19 percent.

Mr. FILNER. The goal is to interdict less than 19 percent?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, the goal on drug interdiction is a withdrawal rate, it is a percentage of the expected flow that we think

we can interdict in the maritime environment is, I believe, 19 percent withdrawal rate.

Mr. FILNER. I mean, we only—when Admiral Collins was commandant and he testified that they had interdicted 15 percent, and

you are close to the goal. But why should we, as a Nation, set such

a low goal for the interdiction of cocaine? Who set that goal?

Admiral NIMMICH. The Office of National Drug Control Policy reviews our budget and certifies our goals, sir.

Mr. FILNER. Do you think that is a high enough goal for this Nation?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, it has been an established goal that we

have tried to achieve with the resources we have, and we continue

to have record years of cocaine seizures.

Mr. FILNER. Well, I don’t know how you can say that with a

straight face in that, if you set a goal low enough, you will reach

it. But, I mean, I find it very disconcerting, to say the least, if not

more troubling that you are satisfied with such a low goal, and we

can’t even reach that one.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Taylor, do you have any follow-ups?

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, I am going to beat this dead horse one

more time. And I want to start with an incident that I actually

saw. We had a lot of people die, and it overwhelmed the local funeral, and there was no electricity, and the local mortician comes

to me, you have got to find me a place to put these bodies. About

this time, the ice trucks started coming in, so I said, well, turned

to the EOC guy, go buy an ice truck.

Well, the ice truck guys, being human beings, knew that they

were making pretty good money, were going to make pretty good

money for a while, and if they started putting bodies in their truck,

it could never be used for ice again, and they didn’t want to sell.

Luckily, the head of the Mississippi Emergency Management—and

I mean by sheer luck—shows up about that time and we kind of

bullied one of the guys—I don’t think we had the legal authority—

we kind of bullied one of the guys into selling us a truck. There

is no other word to use. So that is my little experience with people

wanting to make a few bucks in the case of an emergency, and that

is a pretty serious scenario.

We all know that if another storm or an attack upon one of the

major cities, there is going to be a spike in the price of oil. Based

on what I saw, it is human nature for people who have that commodity to want to hang on to it until the price goes up and then

sell it. It is human nature.

So my question to you is what laws, if any, are on the books to

where, if that scenario, where we have got to get fuel from Pensa-
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cola to Mississippi or from Mississippi to Louisiana, Louisiana to

Texas, in the event of a natural or manmade disaster, what laws

are on the books to where you could call up that fleet replenishment company and say I want you to send X number of barges, X

number of barrels of diesel, X number of barrels of gasoline to

Houston, New Orleans, Biloxi, fill in the blank? Do you have the

legal authority to make that happen? And if you don’t have it, I

would ask your legal team to give me some draft legislation so that

we are prepared for that scenario, because it is going to happen.

I don’t want it to happen, but I can bet you it is going to happen.

Admiral NIMMICH. Congressman, I can’t tell you what the legal

authorities are or aren’t, but we will research that and give you an

answer. But what I can tell you is that the Coast Guard has been

very proactive in working with industry to establish a recovery

framework, and that is what you are really asking for, is when the

infrastructure breaks in one place, how do we use the infrastructure in other places to mitigate the influence that is going on there.

We held a symposium the 1st and 2nd of August with some of

the best and brightest in the Country, and we are working with

them to identify a cooperative recovery framework that we would

be able to use after any natural disaster or any manmade disaster

of that magnitude.

[The information received follows:]

No, the Coast Guard does not have the authority to direct vessels or the delivery of fuel in order to prevent fuel price spikes or for similar economic or supply-related reasons.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Given the seriousness of this, what is a reasonable amount of time for you to get back to me, what legal authority do you have, and if you don’t have it, some suggested legislation so that we can make this part of a future Coast Guard authorization?

Admiral NIMMICH. Sir, we will respond within two weeks.

Mr. TAYLOR. Great. Thank you very much.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Is that it, Mr. Taylor?

Okay, we obviously have some pretty big challenges that we have

to be concerned with for the Coast Guard and its missions, but, Admiral, I thank you for the job you continue to do. We will certainly

be paying more attention to this.

And this Subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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