Seapower - August 2009

Reverse the Trend

By J. MICHAEL McGRATH, National President

Lawmakers in Washington are working feverishly on authorization bills for the fiscal 2010 budget proposal as their August recess draws near. Among myriad committee markups was sweeping action taken July 8 by the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee that would reauthorize Coast Guard programs for two years, to the tune of $9.5 billion annually.

The Coast Guard Authorization

Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 aims to overhaul the service’s acquisition efforts, namely the Deepwater modernization program, by formally putting into legislation many steps the Coast Guard already has taken.

While the Senate committee voted the reauthorize for two years, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee took a more piecemeal approach, approving several smaller bills.

The House committee in April voted on separate bills to overhaul Coast Guard acquisition programs and authorize funds to build a new icebreaker for the Great Lakes. In June, it approved three more bills, one to make safety in U.S. waters a core mission for the service, another to overhaul maritime safety rules and a third to provide student loans for maritime education.

The Senate committee in July also passed a provision to direct the service to do a cost analysis of building new vessels versus rebuilding old ones, but did not specifically tackle the icebreaker issue. Also approved by the panel was a measure that would give the Coast Guard authority to work directly with international maritime authorities and organizations.

Most of these major legislative movements would further support the course the Coast Guard already has taken under the steady hand of Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. Yet they do not go far enough.

Funding approved by the panels, and that originally proposed by President Barack Obama, do not adequately support the men and women who dedicate their lives to this nation’s security and economic well being.

During a July 8 hearing of the Senate committee’s subcommittee on oceans, atmosphere, fisheries and Coast

Guard, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, noted that the service “is taxed with sweeping mandates, and I’m not convinced that the administration’s budget for the fiscal year 2010 [of $9.9 billion] … will provide the kind of funding necessary to meet the broad sweep of responsibilities that the Coast Guard is required to carry out.”

During the hearing, Stephen Caldwell, director of Maritime Security and Coast Guard Issues at the

Government Accountability Office, pointed out that while the president’s 2010 budget request is “ 4. 2 percent more than the 2009 enacted budget … when this year’s supplemental, as well as the [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] money is added into that, the 2010 request actually represents 1 percent less than the previous year’s spending.”

The Coast Guard in the past two years has taken dramatic steps under congressional scrutiny to take the “troubled” Deepwater program in a new, productive direction. It has done that, in part, by putting into place an acquisition directorate capable of program management and oversight. It has taken control of Deepwater, put into place new business practices and, in effect, become the lead systems integrator and prime contractor. The program still is far from perfect, but now is delivering much needed assets to the fleet.

Give credit where it is due, and funding where it is needed most. The U.S. Coast Guard, unfortunately, is used to doing more with less. As Sen. Snowe pointed out at the hearing, despite the service’s “ever-increasing range of responsibility, the number of men and women serving the Coast Guard has not appreciably increased in decades.”

And they are accomplishing those missions on a shoestring budget with aging vessels, aircraft and shore infrastructure. It’s time to reverse that trend.