The Coast Guard, which became a part of the Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003, has a wide variety of both security and nonsecurity missions. (See table 1.) The Coast Guard’s equipment includes 141 cutters, approximately 1,400 small patrol and rescue boats, and about 200 aircraft. Coast Guard services are provided in a variety of locations, including ports, coastal areas, the open sea, and in other waterways like the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The Coast Guard’s installations range from small boat stations providing search and rescue and other services to marine safety offices that coordinate security and other activities in the nation’s largest ports. 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 2002, the agency had over 42,000 full-time positions—about 36,000 military and about 6,600 civilians. The Coast Guard also has about 7,200 reservists who support the national military strategy and provide additional operational support and surge capacity during emergencies, such as natural disasters. In addition, about 36,000 volunteer auxiliary personnel assist in a wide range of activities from search and rescue to boating safety education. Overall, after using fiscal year 2003 inflation-adjusted dollars to adjust for the effects of inflation, the Coast Guard’s budget grew by about 41 percent between fiscal years 1993 and 2003. However, nearly all of this growth occurred in the second half of the period. During fiscal years 1993-1998, after taking inflation into account, the budget remained essentially flat. (See fig. 1.) Significant increases have occurred since fiscal year 1998. The events of September 11th caused the Coast Guard to direct its efforts increasingly into maritime homeland security activities, highlighted by the Coast Guard’s establishing a new program area: Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security (coastal security). Prior to September 11th, activities related to this area represented less than 10 percent of the Coast Guard’s operating budget, according to Coast Guard officials. In the fiscal year 2004 request, Coastal Security represents about one-quarter of the Coast Guard’s operating budget. Other mission areas, most notably drug interdiction, have declined substantially as a percentage of the operating budget. The emphasis the Coast Guard placed on security after September 11th has had varying effects on its level of effort among all of its missions, as measured by the extent to which multiple-mission resources (cutters, other boats, and aircraft) are used for a particular mission. The most current available data show that some security-related missions, such as migrant interdiction and coastal security, have grown significantly since September 11th. Other missions, such as search and rescue and aids to navigation remained at essentially the same levels as they were before September 11th. However, the level of effort for other missions, most notably the interdiction of illegal drugs and fisheries enforcement, is substantially below pre-September 11th levels. Missions such as ports, waterways, and coastal security, and migrant interdiction have experienced increased levels of effort. Coastal security has seen the most dramatic increase from pre-September 11th levels. (See fig. 2.) For example, it went from 2,400 resource hours during the first quarter of 1999, peaked at 91,000 hours during the first quarter of fiscal year 2002 (immediately after September 11, 2001), and most recently stood at nearly 37,000 hours for the first quarter of fiscal year 2003. In figure 2, as well as the other resource hour figures that follow, we have added a line developed by using a linear regression to show the general trend for the period. It is important to note that while such lines depict the trend in resource hours to date, they should not be taken as a prediction of future values. Other activity indicators, such as sea marshal boardings, also demonstrate an increased emphasis in this area. Before September 11th, such boardings were not done, but as of the first quarter of 2003 there have been over 550 such boardings. Similarly, vessel operational control actions have risen by 85 percent since the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2001. Given the emphasis on homeland security, it is not surprising that efforts to interdict illegal immigrants have also increased. For example, during the first quarter of 2003, the level of effort in this area was 28 percent higher than it was for the comparable period in 1998. Some of the Coast Guard’s traditional missions, such as aids to navigation and search and rescue, have been the least affected by the increased emphasis on security. While resource hours for both of these missions have declined somewhat since the first quarter of fiscal year 1998, the overall pattern of resource use over the past 5 years has remained consistent. Although search and rescue boats and buoy tenders were used to perform homeland security functions immediately after September 11th, their doing so did not materially affect the Coast Guard’s ability to carry out its search and rescue or aids to navigation missions. Search and rescue boats were initially redeployed for harbor patrols after the terrorist attacks, but the impact on the mission was minimal because the deployments occurred during the off-season with respect to recreational boating. Similarly, some boats that normally serve as buoy tenders—an aids to navigation function—were used for security purposes instead, but they were among the first to be returned to their former missions. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2003, the number of resource hours spent on these missions was very close to the number spent during the comparable quarter of fiscal year 1998. Performance measurement data further demonstrates the relatively minimal impact on these missions resulting from the Coast Guard’s emphasis on homeland security. For example, for search and rescue, the Coast Guard was within about half a percentage point of meeting its target for saving mariners in distress in 2002 (84.4 percent actual, 85 percent goal). Likewise, data show that with respect to its aid to navigation mission, in 2002 the Coast Guard was about 1 percent from its goal of navigational aid availability (98.4 percent actual, 99.7 percent goal). A number of missions have experienced declines in resource hours from pre-September 11th levels, including drug interdiction, fisheries enforcement (domestic and foreign), marine environmental protection, and marine safety. In particular, drug enforcement and fisheries enforcement have experienced significant declines. Compared with the first quarter of 1998, resource hours for the first quarter of fiscal year 2003 represent declines of 60 percent for drug interdiction and 38 percent for fisheries enforcement. (See fig. 4.) In fact, resource hours for these areas were declining even before the events of September 11th, and while they briefly rebounded in early 2002, they have since continued to decline. A Coast Guard official said the recent decline in both drug enforcement and fisheries can be attributed to the heightened security around July 4, 2002, and the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, as well as the deployment of resources for military operations. They said the decline will likely not be reversed during the second quarter of 2003 because of the diversion of Coast Guard cutters to the Middle East and the heightened security alert that occurred in February 2003. The reduction in resource hours over the last several years in drug enforcement is particularly telling. In the first quarter of 1998, the Coast Guard was expending nearly 34,000 resource hours on drug enforcement, and as of first quarter of 2003, the resource hours had declined to almost 14,000 hours—a reduction of nearly two-thirds. Also, both the number of boardings to identify illegal drugs and the amount of illegal drugs seized declined from the first quarter of fiscal year 2000. The Coast Guard’s goal of reducing the flow of illegal drugs based on the seizure rate for cocaine has not been met since 1999. During our conversations with Coast Guard officials, they explained that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) set this performance goal in 1997, and although they recognize they are obligated to meet these goals, they believe the goals should be revised. Our review of the Coast Guard’s activity levels in domestic fishing shows U.S. fishing vessel boardings and significant violations identified are both down since 2000. The Coast Guard interdicted only 19 percent as many foreign vessels as it did in 2000. The reduced level of effort dedicated to these two missions is likely linked to the Coast Guard’s inability to meet its performance goals in these two areas. For instance, in 2002 the Coast Guard did not meet its goal of detecting foreign fishing vessel incursions, and while there is no target for domestic fishing violations, there were fewer boardings and fewer violations in 2002 than in 2000. Recently, the Coast Guard Commandant stated that the Coast Guard intends to return law enforcement missions (drug interdiction, migrant interdiction, and fisheries enforcement) to 93 percent of pre-September 11th levels by the end of 2003 and 95 percent by the end of 2004. However, in the environment of heightened security and the continued deployment of resources to the Middle East, these goals will likely not be achieved, especially for drug interdiction and fisheries enforcement, which are currently far below previous activity levels. The Coast Guard’s budget request for fiscal year 2004 does not contain initiatives or proposals that would substantially alter the current distribution of levels of effort among mission areas. The request for $6.8 billion represents an increase of about $592 million, or about 9.6 percent in nominal dollars, over the enacted budget for fiscal year 2003. The majority of the increase covers pay increases for current or retired employees or continues certain programs already under way, such as upgrades to information technology. About $168.5 million of the increase would fund new initiatives, most of which relate either to homeland security or to search and rescue. Another $20.8 million of the increase is for the capital acquisitions request, which totals $797 million.