The Coast Guard, a Department of Transportation agency, is involved in seven main mission or program areas: (1) enforcing maritime laws and treaties, (2) search and rescue (3) aids to navigation, (4) marine environmental protection, (5) marine safety and security (including homeland security), (6) defense readiness, and (7) ice operations. Most of the Coast Guard’s services are provided through a number of small boat stations, air stations, marine safety offices, and other facilities and assets located in coastal areas, at sea, and near other waterways like the Great Lakes. Its equipment in operation today includes 228 cutters, approximately 1,200 small patrol and rescue boats, and 200 aircraft. As an organization that is also part of the armed services, the Coast Guard has both military and civilian positions. At the end of fiscal year 2001, the agency had over 39,000 total full-time positions—about 33,700 military and about 5,700 civilians. The Coast Guard also has about 8,000 reservists who support the national military strategy and provide additional operational support and surge capacity during emergencies, such as natural disasters. Also, about 34,000 volunteer auxiliary personnel assist in a wide range of activities ranging from search and rescue to boating safety education. Overall, after adjusting for the effects of inflation, the Coast Guard’s total budget grew by 32 percent between fiscal years 1993 and 2002. During nearly half this period, however, in real terms the budget was basically flat. As figure 1 shows, in constant 2001 dollars, the Coast Guard’s budget remained essentially static from fiscal year 1993 to 1998. Significant increases have occurred since fiscal year 1998. (Dollars in Millions) The Coast Guard’s initial budget request for fiscal year 2002, submitted early in 2001, represents a pre-September 11th picture of how the Coast Guard intended to operate. As figure 2 shows, law enforcement was by far the largest mission category, with budgeted expenses estimated at $1.47 billion, or about 43 percent of total operating expenses. Marine safety and security, at $456 million, was about 13 percent of the total. (Dollars in Millions) Following the events of September 11th, the Congress provided the Coast Guard with a supplemental appropriation of $209 million. After it received this additional amount, the Coast Guard revised the budget allocation for its various missions. As figure 3 shows, the revision produced a doubling of projected expenses for marine safety and security and smaller increases for aids to navigation and search and rescue. By contrast, projected expenses for law enforcement, ice operations, and marine environmental protection were reduced. (Dollars in Millions) For the Coast Guard, the events of September 11th produced a dramatic shift in resources used for certain missions. The Coast Guard responded quickly to the attacks with a number of significant steps to ensure that the nation’s ports remained open and operating. The Coast Guard relocated vessels, aircraft, and personnel from traditional missions—especially law enforcement—to enhance security activities. Subsequently, the Coast Guard has returned some of these resources to their more traditional non- security missions, but in some areas, it faces challenges in restoring the level of activity to what it had been. After September 11th, the Coast Guard responded by positioning vessels, aircraft, and personnel not only to provide security, but also to increase visibility in key maritime locations. Key actions taken included the following: Recalling all cutters that were conducting offshore law enforcement patrols for drug, immigration, and fisheries enforcement and repositioning them at entrances to such ports as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. The Coast Guard also used smaller assets, such as patrol boats, motor lifeboats, and aircraft, to supplement increased port security activities. The smaller boats were used mainly for conducting security patrols within port facilities and in fact, became the port’s “cop on the beat,” according to Coast Guard officials. Establishing a new National Vessel Movement Center to track the movement of all foreign-flagged vessels entering U.S. ports of call. The center is now the clearinghouse for vessel information, such as type of cargo and crew manifest. All commercial vessels over 300 gross tons are required to report this information to the center 96 hours in advance of their arrival. This information is then provided to the Coast Guard’s local marine safety offices, which use a risk-based decision model to decide if a specific vessel is considered high interest, thus requiring an escort or additional security and safety inspections or oversight. Implementing a series of limited risk assessments that identified high-risk infrastructure and facilities within specific areas of operation. These assessments, which were done by Coast Guard marine safety office personnel at individual ports, were the basis for deploying small boats for security patrols inside harbors and focused on identified high-threat facilities. Adopting a temporary regulation prohibiting any private vessel from approaching within 100 yards of Navy ships without permission. The Coast Guard is proposing that such a restriction become permanent. Activating and deploying the Coast Guard’s port security units to help support local port security patrols in high-threat areas. To maintain surge capacity and to deploy these units overseas, the Coast Guard also formed five interim marine security and safety teams, using full-time Coast Guard personnel trained in tactical law enforcement and based in Yorktown, Virginia. The Coast Guard is considering adding more of these teams in the future. Recalling about 2,700 reservists to active duty. Today, more than 1,800 are still on active duty. According to Coast Guard officials, reservists have played a major role in allowing the Coast Guard to respond to both its homeland security and other mission functions. Their functions include staffing boat crews and port security units and performing administrative functions in place of active duty personnel who were pressed into new responsibilities elsewhere. The precise extent to which these responses changed the Coast Guard’s allocation of mission resources cannot be determined, mainly because the Coast Guard is still gathering and analyzing the data. However, in our discussions with Coast Guard personnel, we were told that law enforcement activities, such as fisheries and counter drug patrols, saw the greatest reduction in actual services. For example: A number of Coast Guard districts have reported that security activities have impacted their ability to conduct fisheries enforcement missions, such as boarding of recreational and commercial fishing vessels. For example, District 1 reported a drop in fishing boat boardings in the New England fishing grounds, from 300 in the first quarter of fiscal year 2001 to just 38 during the first quarter of fiscal year 2002. Also, law enforcement- related civil penalties and fines were down substantially for the District as well. Districts also reported reduced drug interdiction efforts. For example, prior to September 11th, District 11 would send 110-foot patrol boats, which serve as the District’s primary boats for drug patrols, from Alameda to areas off the southern California and Mexican shores. The District had to eliminate these patrols when the boats were reallocated for security functions. Some districts had to re-allocate personnel to specific security activities. For example, District 13 reallocated personnel from small boat stations along the Washington coast to help implement added security measures in ports in Puget Sound. District 13 staff reported that patrol boats and small boats experienced a large increase in operational hours and that Coast Guard personnel who were assigned to boat stations experienced a marked increase in work hours from 60 to 80 hours per week. Other districts reported similar strains on personnel. Although the Coast Guard drew resources from many mission areas, some areas were less negatively affected than law enforcement in continuing to meet mission requirements. For example, although the Coast Guard had to put search and rescue vessels and personnel into security roles, doing so did not negatively affect search and rescue activities or detract from saving lives, according to the Coast Guard. The main reason was that the terrorist attacks occurred when the busiest part of the search and rescue season was essentially over. In addition, during the initial response, there were no major storms and the weather was warmer, requiring less icebreaker services, search and rescue calls, and oil tanker escorts. In an attempt to restore capabilities in its key mission areas, the Coast Guard has begun Operation NEPTUNE SHIELD, which has a goal of performing new enhanced security missions, while at the same time returning resources to other missions such as law enforcement, search and rescue, defense readiness, and marine safety. Also, in March 2002, the Coast Guard Commandant issued guidance that instructed his Atlantic and Pacific Area Commanders to plan and manage assets and personnel for long-term, sustainable operating tempos more in line with traditional mission functions, while still maintaining heightened security. Coast Guard officials from both the Atlantic and Pacific Areas have started implementing this guidance. As a result, deepwater cutters and aircraft are returning to traditional mission allocations but are still not at pre- September 11th levels. For example, because the Atlantic and Pacific areas each continue to allocate a deepwater cutter for coastal security patrols, the amount of time that will be spent on counter-drug and marine resources patrols is still below pre-September 11th levels. While a return to the pre-September 11th activity pattern is under way for deepwater cutters, district patrol boats and small boats remain deployed closer to their post-September 11th levels. Because the Coast Guard has implemented a number of new security activities or has increased the level of normal port security activities, the Coast Guard has continued to use boats and personnel from small boats stations and other areas for security missions. These missions include performing security inspections of cargo containers and port facilities, escorting or boarding high-interest commercial vessels, escorting Navy ships and cruise ships, establishing and enforcing new security zones, and conducting harbor security patrols.