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Author Topic:   House of Representatives Committee on Transportation

jimh posted 12-16-2013 03:08 PM ET (US)
The United States House of Representatives Committee on Transportation met in a public session on December 11, 2013 to have a hearing on “Coast Guard Mission Execution: How is the Coast Guard Meeting Its Mission Goals?”
The committee provided a document giving background on the topic:
http://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ 2013-12-11-coast_guard_ssm.pdf
The document presents the 11 statutory missions of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), and tracks the performance of the USCG in meeting the performance measurement of those missions.
For more information see
http://transport.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=361887
The above web page includes a video and audio recording of the hearing.
jimh posted 12-18-2013 08:13 PM ET (US)
At about one hour and 19-minutes into the recording, Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina is asking some questions. In regard to the general problem of the USCG being underfunded and unable to accomplish all of its missions, Mr. Rice suggests that perhaps the Coast Guard could prioritize its responsibilities. The Coast Guard admiral responds that all of its missions are important, and they can't really cut back on any. Representative Rice then observes:

quote:
There's excesses in...every entity. I have been--and I'm not talking about once, I'm talking about numerous times--on the waterways around my area [Myrtle Beach, South Carolina], and I have seen a Coast Guard boat checking people [i.e., performing a boarding of a recreational boat for a safety inspection] right next to a sheriff's deputy boat and a DNR boat. So there is, obviously, a redundancy that perhaps doesn't need to be there.
The Coast Guard admiral replies. He ignores the aspect of the Coast Guard performing these safety inspections which are also being done simultaneously and in the same place as ones done by other agencies like the sheriff or DNR, and, instead, he replies with the observation that by checking boaters for mandatory safety equipment they will reduce the likelihood that they will have to perform a search and rescue operation for that same boat in the future. That might be true, but it completely ignores the question about utilizing the assets of the Coast Guard to perform these functions when there are other agencies performing them.
I think Representative Rice makes a good point. There is no way the Coast Guard will get enough funding to allow it to fulfill all of its 11 statutory missions, so why not prioritize those missions? (Later in the hearing the chairman remarks that it is impossible that all 11-missions of the Coast Guard must be its core mission. All entities, like a business, have to prioritize their goals. Yet the Coast Guard seems unwilling to do that.) What is the point of burning up crew time, boat time, and mission resources conducting boarding of boats for safety inspections if there are other agencies already performing that task?
jimh posted 12-19-2013 12:16 AM ET (US)
[ASIDE: I had a lot of problems getting the Flash video content to play on my computer, which runs MacOS. After some research into the problem, I was able to remedy the problem by reinstalling the Flash player. I also deleted all the cached Flash content.]
Mambo Minnow posted 12-19-2013 12:25 PM ET (US)
Duplication of roles/effort is the quintessential question in not just Dept of Homeland Security but Defense as well.
Does the Marine Corps really need it's own Air Force? Do we need a Marine Corps when satellites make a sneak invasion on a beachhead a virtual uncertainty and the Army has been delivered by sea in the past as well?
The Federal budget crisis gets worse in each passing year due to mandatory spending for statutory requirements. The discretionary budget will be further stressed for savings and some of these redundancies will be forced to be dealt with as a matter of necessity.
In the meantime, no one wants to willingly give away their rice bowl.
jimh posted 12-20-2013 09:42 AM ET (US)
The problem for the Coast Guard is the number of core missions, eleven, the notion that they are specified by statute, and the present situation where these missions are being performed at about a 50-percent performance mark. (The performance evaluations are referenced in the documents linked on the committee hearing page.)
As the hearing draws to a close, there are further comments from the Representatives at the hearing that the Coast Guard needs to give Congress an assessment of which missions it views as being most vital, that is, to prioritize the missions. The Congress can then make statutory changes, if necessary, to help the Coast Guard be more successful at meeting its performance goals.
The current administration has submitted a budget that cuts funding for the Coast Guard. Funding for the Coast Guard has been below the amount anticipated and needed to replace older assets. The general trend is that funding will continue to be limited and lower than expected, and the Coast Guard will have to adjust its missions.
Mambo Minnow posted 12-21-2013 09:28 AM ET (US)
The best thing that ever happened to the Coast Guard was the creation and transfer into the Dept of Homeland Security from Dept of Transportation.
After 9/11, the Dept of Homeland Security was flush with cash. The USCG just moved into a new "Taj Mahal" HQ building in DC. They received all new SAFE boats and the National Security Cutter class vessels.
The USCG will never willingly abdicate statutory missions. Congress will never direct it either, because no Congressman wants to lose a USCG base and jobs in his/her district.
Jefecinco posted 12-21-2013 10:28 AM ET (US)
Mambo,
The USCG has few strong proponents in congress. Very few states have a USCG presence and the bases are miniscule compared to our other Armed Forces. They are helped by coastal states with large populations such as NY, FL, TX, and CA. I don't know enough about their presence around the Great Lakes to comment.
Where did you get the idea that the USMC has an Air Force? The helicopter part of their Air Arm is used virtually exclusively for close combat support of ground forces. Their jet fighters are usually aircraft carrier based and serve the Navy. For the most part they supplement the Navy Air Arm.
The USAF has been proven to be far less effective in close combat support roles than are the Army and Marine Corps.
Butch
Mambo Minnow posted 12-22-2013 04:23 PM ET (US)
Butch, I can assure you the Marine Corps does not consider itself subordinate to the Navy <lol>.
You neglect to factor in the AV-8B VSTOL Harriers embarked on LHD class vessels as well as the transformational V-22 Tiltrotor. Marine F/A-18s often operate forward from land as well as carriers. They even have their own fleet of KC-130 aerial refueling cargo aircraft.
The most development troublesome variant of the F-35 Joint Stike Fighter has been the Marine Corps VSTOL variant, which is the most expensive single procurement program in DoD history.
jimh posted 12-23-2013 12:48 AM ET (US)
The Coast Guard service did have some acquisition problems that became something of a scandal generally referred to as Deepwater. The Coast Guard acquisition was so bad it even got the attention of "60-MINUTES",
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-troubled-waters-of-deepwater/
But their present acquisition process seems to be going much better, nowadays. The Response Boat-Medium (RB-M) was mentioned in the hearing (or perhaps in another one, as I have watched a couple of them) as being a great boat. The delivered boats have exceed expectations. The builder was cited as having done great work and having great craftsmen building these boats. They are made in Kent, Washington, by a division of Kvichak Marine Industries and by Marinette Marine Corporation. (By the way, Marinette Marine is owned by Italian maritime conglomerate Fincantieri, so it is not really an American company, although its facilities are mainly in Wisconsin.)
The problem for the Coast Guard is not so much that they have too much money and have squandered it, but just the opposite. They are facing budget reductions for both operation and replacement of assets. They still seem to think that sending out Response Boat-Small (RB-S and RB-S-II) boats to stop recreational boaters and shake them down for flares, life jackets, and registration forms is a critical and core mission.
Boaters have been complaining about this for years. Now a congressman at a Congressional hearing tells an Admiral of the Coast Guard that he thinks there is too much of these recreational boat inspections going on, and the Admiral ignores him, insisting that it is a core mission.
Mambo Minnow posted 12-23-2013 07:46 AM ET (US)
Marinette also builds the Freedom class Littoral Combat Ship for the Navy. They just launched USS Milwaukee LCS 5.
jimh posted 12-23-2013 02:01 PM ET (US)
It is nice that the Navy ship MILWAUKEE was built in Wisconsin.
prj posted 12-23-2013 08:29 PM ET (US)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Rick Barrett has written a nice piece on the recent christening of the USS Milwaukee.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/ uss-milwaukee-to-be-christened-in-marinette-b99165697z1-236304171.html
Marinette Marine (a subsidiary of Fincantieri as Jim notes) in conjunction with Lockheed Martin is building half of the USCG Littoral vessels. Austal Marine in Mobile, AL is building the other half, a fairly radical looking tri-hull design. Austal also built the high-speed catamaran ferry traversing Lake Michigan from Milwaukee to Muskegon.
Whether or not the USCG has too much money and has squandered it, or doesn't have enough for its stated mission is probably a subjective question. Having seen up close both inland assets at several locations on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and Atlantic Coast (Chesapeake Bay area) operations, including their new Kvichak Marine 40 footers; and being generally aware of their activity and relevance in the Great Lakes area, I might suggest this well funded operation is not optimizing its assets and manpower in a cost effective manner locally.
While I can certainly appreciate the societal value a 22 foot Bayliner or Pontoon boat with flares having a current date represents, I'm not exactly certain that I need a well armed and militarized force of 4-5 in a half million dollar state-of-the-art vessel enforcing such a thing.

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Author	Topic: House of Representatives Committee on Transportation
jimh	posted 12-16-2013 03:08 PM ET (US) The United States House of Representatives Committee on Transportation met in a public session on December 11, 2013 to have a hearing on “Coast Guard Mission Execution: How is the Coast Guard Meeting Its Mission Goals?” The committee provided a document giving background on the topic: http://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ 2013-12-11-coast_guard_ssm.pdf The document presents the 11 statutory missions of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), and tracks the performance of the USCG in meeting the performance measurement of those missions. For more information see http://transport.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=361887 The above web page includes a video and audio recording of the hearing.
jimh	posted 12-18-2013 08:13 PM ET (US) At about one hour and 19-minutes into the recording, Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina is asking some questions. In regard to the general problem of the USCG being underfunded and unable to accomplish all of its missions, Mr. Rice suggests that perhaps the Coast Guard could prioritize its responsibilities. The Coast Guard admiral responds that all of its missions are important, and they can't really cut back on any. Representative Rice then observes: quote: There's excesses in...every entity. I have been--and I'm not talking about once, I'm talking about numerous times--on the waterways around my area [Myrtle Beach, South Carolina], and I have seen a Coast Guard boat checking people [i.e., performing a boarding of a recreational boat for a safety inspection] right next to a sheriff's deputy boat and a DNR boat. So there is, obviously, a redundancy that perhaps doesn't need to be there. The Coast Guard admiral replies. He ignores the aspect of the Coast Guard performing these safety inspections which are also being done simultaneously and in the same place as ones done by other agencies like the sheriff or DNR, and, instead, he replies with the observation that by checking boaters for mandatory safety equipment they will reduce the likelihood that they will have to perform a search and rescue operation for that same boat in the future. That might be true, but it completely ignores the question about utilizing the assets of the Coast Guard to perform these functions when there are other agencies performing them. I think Representative Rice makes a good point. There is no way the Coast Guard will get enough funding to allow it to fulfill all of its 11 statutory missions, so why not prioritize those missions? (Later in the hearing the chairman remarks that it is impossible that all 11-missions of the Coast Guard must be its core mission. All entities, like a business, have to prioritize their goals. Yet the Coast Guard seems unwilling to do that.) What is the point of burning up crew time, boat time, and mission resources conducting boarding of boats for safety inspections if there are other agencies already performing that task?
jimh	posted 12-19-2013 12:16 AM ET (US) [ASIDE: I had a lot of problems getting the Flash video content to play on my computer, which runs MacOS. After some research into the problem, I was able to remedy the problem by reinstalling the Flash player. I also deleted all the cached Flash content.]
Mambo Minnow	posted 12-19-2013 12:25 PM ET (US) Duplication of roles/effort is the quintessential question in not just Dept of Homeland Security but Defense as well. Does the Marine Corps really need it's own Air Force? Do we need a Marine Corps when satellites make a sneak invasion on a beachhead a virtual uncertainty and the Army has been delivered by sea in the past as well? The Federal budget crisis gets worse in each passing year due to mandatory spending for statutory requirements. The discretionary budget will be further stressed for savings and some of these redundancies will be forced to be dealt with as a matter of necessity. In the meantime, no one wants to willingly give away their rice bowl.
jimh	posted 12-20-2013 09:42 AM ET (US) The problem for the Coast Guard is the number of core missions, eleven, the notion that they are specified by statute, and the present situation where these missions are being performed at about a 50-percent performance mark. (The performance evaluations are referenced in the documents linked on the committee hearing page.) As the hearing draws to a close, there are further comments from the Representatives at the hearing that the Coast Guard needs to give Congress an assessment of which missions it views as being most vital, that is, to prioritize the missions. The Congress can then make statutory changes, if necessary, to help the Coast Guard be more successful at meeting its performance goals. The current administration has submitted a budget that cuts funding for the Coast Guard. Funding for the Coast Guard has been below the amount anticipated and needed to replace older assets. The general trend is that funding will continue to be limited and lower than expected, and the Coast Guard will have to adjust its missions.
Mambo Minnow	posted 12-21-2013 09:28 AM ET (US) The best thing that ever happened to the Coast Guard was the creation and transfer into the Dept of Homeland Security from Dept of Transportation. After 9/11, the Dept of Homeland Security was flush with cash. The USCG just moved into a new "Taj Mahal" HQ building in DC. They received all new SAFE boats and the National Security Cutter class vessels. The USCG will never willingly abdicate statutory missions. Congress will never direct it either, because no Congressman wants to lose a USCG base and jobs in his/her district.
Jefecinco	posted 12-21-2013 10:28 AM ET (US) Mambo, The USCG has few strong proponents in congress. Very few states have a USCG presence and the bases are miniscule compared to our other Armed Forces. They are helped by coastal states with large populations such as NY, FL, TX, and CA. I don't know enough about their presence around the Great Lakes to comment. Where did you get the idea that the USMC has an Air Force? The helicopter part of their Air Arm is used virtually exclusively for close combat support of ground forces. Their jet fighters are usually aircraft carrier based and serve the Navy. For the most part they supplement the Navy Air Arm. The USAF has been proven to be far less effective in close combat support roles than are the Army and Marine Corps. Butch
Mambo Minnow	posted 12-22-2013 04:23 PM ET (US) Butch, I can assure you the Marine Corps does not consider itself subordinate to the Navy <lol>. You neglect to factor in the AV-8B VSTOL Harriers embarked on LHD class vessels as well as the transformational V-22 Tiltrotor. Marine F/A-18s often operate forward from land as well as carriers. They even have their own fleet of KC-130 aerial refueling cargo aircraft. The most development troublesome variant of the F-35 Joint Stike Fighter has been the Marine Corps VSTOL variant, which is the most expensive single procurement program in DoD history.
jimh	posted 12-23-2013 12:48 AM ET (US) The Coast Guard service did have some acquisition problems that became something of a scandal generally referred to as Deepwater. The Coast Guard acquisition was so bad it even got the attention of "60-MINUTES", http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-troubled-waters-of-deepwater/ But their present acquisition process seems to be going much better, nowadays. The Response Boat-Medium (RB-M) was mentioned in the hearing (or perhaps in another one, as I have watched a couple of them) as being a great boat. The delivered boats have exceed expectations. The builder was cited as having done great work and having great craftsmen building these boats. They are made in Kent, Washington, by a division of Kvichak Marine Industries and by Marinette Marine Corporation. (By the way, Marinette Marine is owned by Italian maritime conglomerate Fincantieri, so it is not really an American company, although its facilities are mainly in Wisconsin.) The problem for the Coast Guard is not so much that they have too much money and have squandered it, but just the opposite. They are facing budget reductions for both operation and replacement of assets. They still seem to think that sending out Response Boat-Small (RB-S and RB-S-II) boats to stop recreational boaters and shake them down for flares, life jackets, and registration forms is a critical and core mission. Boaters have been complaining about this for years. Now a congressman at a Congressional hearing tells an Admiral of the Coast Guard that he thinks there is too much of these recreational boat inspections going on, and the Admiral ignores him, insisting that it is a core mission.
Mambo Minnow	posted 12-23-2013 07:46 AM ET (US) Marinette also builds the Freedom class Littoral Combat Ship for the Navy. They just launched USS Milwaukee LCS 5.
jimh	posted 12-23-2013 02:01 PM ET (US) It is nice that the Navy ship MILWAUKEE was built in Wisconsin.
prj	posted 12-23-2013 08:29 PM ET (US) The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Rick Barrett has written a nice piece on the recent christening of the USS Milwaukee. http://www.jsonline.com/business/ uss-milwaukee-to-be-christened-in-marinette-b99165697z1-236304171.html Marinette Marine (a subsidiary of Fincantieri as Jim notes) in conjunction with Lockheed Martin is building half of the USCG Littoral vessels. Austal Marine in Mobile, AL is building the other half, a fairly radical looking tri-hull design. Austal also built the high-speed catamaran ferry traversing Lake Michigan from Milwaukee to Muskegon. Whether or not the USCG has too much money and has squandered it, or doesn't have enough for its stated mission is probably a subjective question. Having seen up close both inland assets at several locations on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and Atlantic Coast (Chesapeake Bay area) operations, including their new Kvichak Marine 40 footers; and being generally aware of their activity and relevance in the Great Lakes area, I might suggest this well funded operation is not optimizing its assets and manpower in a cost effective manner locally. While I can certainly appreciate the societal value a 22 foot Bayliner or Pontoon boat with flares having a current date represents, I'm not exactly certain that I need a well armed and militarized force of 4-5 in a half million dollar state-of-the-art vessel enforcing such a thing.