Mineta already knows about the Coast Guard, since power boating is his main hobby. He is about to learn a lot more though, because the new chairman of the House Transportation Committee is Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, representing the state with the longest coastline. The Coast Guard spends a huge amount of time in turbulent waters around Alaska dealing with oil spills, rescuing boaters, preventing overfishing and so on. Even with top-notch managers, it cannot keep its decrepit fleet of cutters and aircraft from showing its age. The average cutter is nearly 30 years old.
Aircraft are overworked and increasingly unreliable.
The problem has been neglected for so long that lives are now at risk. Coast Guard stations around the country have been forced to cut back on operations by 10 percent because of a lack of funds. And, in at least one case, the lack of available aircraft or more specifically, a shortage of aircraft parts resulted in a failed rescue attempt off the coast of California. In that instance, the service was unable to keep a C-130 over a small sailboat in distress until relieved by another aircraft. During the subsequent gap in surveillance a National Guard aircraft eventually arrived on scene the sailboat disappeared, never to be seen again.